VOODOO: THE HISTORY OF A RACIAL SLUR. By Danielle N.Boaz. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2023. 208 pp. $29.95, paperback.

Voodoo: The History of a Racial Slur primarily illuminates and historicizes the invention, categorization, and application of Voodoo as a racial and religious other to the European American people and Christian religion which was the predominant religious tradition of people of European descent after their migration to North America from Europe. Boaz extensively uses primary sources in the form of magazines, newspapers, and archival sources to examine how people of European descent in America invented the word in the 1850s, borrowing from its French usage(Vaudoux) in Haiti after the Louisiana Purchase from the French. From that time onward, according to Boaz, people of European descent in America and sometimes African American Christians have widened the application of the word to many forms of regular practices of African Americans and the Caribbeans in North America. As a result, Voodoo has been applied to Afro cultures, Afro response to socio-political tension and crisis in Haiti and Cuba, resistance, and slave rebellion. Among Boaz's book's major contributions to knowledge on African and African diaspora religious discourses is looking at the invention and emergence of Voodoo in America: While many scholars and the public assume that Voodoo is a religion practiced all across West Africa, Boaz provides a convincing argument that it is an American invention based on the French word Vaudoux, which also has roots in Benin. The French used Vaudoux during the time of slavery to refer to African religious practice from West Africa, especially Benin and, more precisely, the king of Dahomey. Following the Louisiana Purchase of the early 1800s, New Orleans became home to many African Americans and Caribbean people because of its closeness to the port. At the time of the Civil War in 1963, the Union Army captured it and made it a center for recruiting Black soldiers into the Union Army. Escaping slavery and the civil war from the South, many former enslaved people settled in Louisiana, and therefore, various African cultures, traditions, and practices survived in New Orleans. All of the African cultural practices and traditions that continued in New Orleans were perceived and tagged as Voodoo by people of European descent. In newspapers and magazines in the past, numerous journalists and columnists would refer to all African religions as Voodoo. For many Americans, Voodoo means superstition, witchcraft, cannibalism, and savagery. Therefore, the stereotypical usage of the word makes it no different from other racial slurs that have been used historically in presenting Black people as the “other,” non-Christian, non-civilized, barbaric, etc. Throughout this book, Boaz specifically provides examples of how the application of the word moves from religious practices to racial slurs. In three chapters of the book, Boaz discusses the historical usage of the words Voudou and Voodoo in connection to the Caribbean, with more attention paid to Haiti and Cuba. Haiti, the first Black colony, has attracted a wide range of interest from scholars up until now. Since the liberation of the Haitian colony by formerly enslaved people, the African religious tradition known as Voudou has been strong. People associated the Haitian revolution with magic and vodou practices, believing that most of the former enslaved Africans who participated in the revolution had done some incantations or juju. So also, during the US occupation of Cuba from 1890 to 1920, many myths and stereotypes were invented and circulated about the people of Cuba, precisely one that has to do with human sacrifice and cannibalism. Boaz traces instances and examples of individuals accused of witchcraft and Voodoo. The last chapter of Boaz's book examines sex trafficking and oath-taking from the 1990s to the present day. While the cases of sex tracking Boaz discusses in this chapter are exclusively among Africans moving to Europe (Italy), it was discovered that madams who recruit young ladies for sex trafficking have them take some oath to keep to their promises of paying the money involved and not exposing their madams. People of European descent categorized those forms of oath-taking as Voodoo as well. So, in the popular culture of Europe and America, any cultural and religious practice that is African but not Christian is likely to be named Voodoo. This book is highly informative because it provides the historical context of Vaudoux, Voudou in the Caribbean, and the usage of Voodoo in American popular culture. While many scholars of African and African diaspora religions of the past only gloss through the historicity of Voodoo, Boaz commits an entire book to discuss it and its negative application. Voodoo in America is used just like racial slurs and racial stereotypes and myths. Although Boaz mentioned briefly that the word voodoo is strange to many West Africans, committing to a chapter or section to discuss the perceptions of West Africans of Voodoo would be great. Whether via interviews or through interaction with the works of scholars like Jacob Olupona, John Mbiti, and Bolaji Idowu, Boaz can argue for the absence of such terms in their writing on African religions.