![\"\"\/](\"https:\/\/protestia.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/09\/springfield-migrants-1024x510.jpg\")
<\/figure>\n\n\n\nAs Haitians are in the process of colonizing small towns in the Midwest, displacing Americans and turning them into refugees, much has been said about the advantage that immigration brings to America. Of course, when there is a sizable population change (as has happened in Springfield, Ohio), it is not immigration but settler colonialism. Just as indigenous populations in the Americas had to grapple with the religion of the continent\u2019s new conquerors, we, too, need to understand the religious underpinnings of those who are replacing us.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Haiti, characterized by President Trump<\/a> as a \u201csh*&hole nation,\u201d seems as accurate a description as can be given. When Trump characterized Haiti disparagingly, no shortage of celebrity outrage ensued, qualifying his description as RAciSt. But, it appears accurate when looking at the data. Haiti leads the world in homicide per capita, rape per capita, and other kinds of violent crime per capita, and it has the distinction as the 127th most dangerous nation (out of 163 nations) by the Global Peace Index<\/a>. According to the International Rescue Committee<\/a>, girls and women suffer the brunt of the violence, as gangs use rape of their foes\u2019 female family members as retribution for perceived wrongs. And although the term shi&*hole appears crass, the description is apropos, as only 43% of the nation has access to running water according to the World Bank<\/a>, and 31% practice \u201copen defecation,\u201d opting to not so much as dig a trench to hold their feces. Just as celebrities were winding down their criticism of President Trump, Haiti was thrown into civil unrest as a warlord named \u201cBarbecue\u201d took over<\/a> and people began to cannibalize one another<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n If America\u2019s politicians cared about Americans, importing a potentially unlimited number of Haitians into the United States would not be on the list of priorities, but the Biden Administration has extended refugee status to all Haitians (without any kind of meaningful vetting) until February of 2026.<\/p>\n\n\n\n When Haitians do in America what they have done in Haiti, many \u201cevangelical leaders\u201d claim that patriotic Americans are guilty of \u201cslander\u201d and \u201chate\u201d and \u201cperpetuating smears\u201d for doing little but reporting actual facts. For example, despite there being video evidence <\/a>of rampant cannibalism in Haiti from 2019, 2021, and 2024 (at the very least), such claims are given the title of \u201crumor\u201d and \u201csystemic racism.\u201d When American citizens report eye-witness testimony of Haitians capturing and butchering ducks from the local park, or cats and dogs from neighboring homes, a simple statement from government officials promoting settler colonialism saying \u201cthey\u2019ve received no credible complaints\u201d (only because they do not believe the citizens of their community are credible) is enough for the \u201cfact-checkers\u201d to play interference with the American public.<\/p>\n\n\n\n At the very least, one should surmise that if Haiti is such a terrible place that America should welcome all Haitians to her shores, Haiti has some systemic societal problems that will not disappear just because of a change of area code. And when Haitians begin to outnumber Americans, one should surmise that those problems will follow. Anything short of that is an assault on basic logic.<\/p>\n\n\n\n From a Christian perspective, is there something about Haiti\u2019s accepted religious practices that has led to the societal collapse of that nation? Probably, yes.<\/p>\n\n\n\n According to the U.S. Department of State, 55% of Haitians are Roman Catholics, an unsurprising statistic for that part of Latin America. Their population primarily descends from slaves brought by the French (who were predominantly Roman Catholic) in the 15th Century. Despite gaining their independence in 1804 from the Spanish (France ceded the island to the Spanish in the 17th Century), Haitians held on to certain vestments of Papistry from their captors, combined with the occultic traditions of West Africa and the Nativist pagan religion of the Taino, who were the original inhabitants of the island before the Spanish arrival.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The Taino, who populated the Greater Antilles (Haiti, Cuba, Jamaica, and Puerto Rico), observed religious animism and worshiped through the use of Zemis <\/a>(wooden objects and various idols that they believed were endowed with spirits). Haitian Taino religion is similar to Santeria<\/a>, a Cuban version that combines Taino occultism with Roman Catholicism and Spanish-African nativism.
As a part of Critical Theory, which has ravished the Third World as much as the First, many Haitians have joined what\u2019s called the \u201cAfro-Taino Reconnection,\u201d<\/a> an intentional society-wide renaissance of ancient Taino religion, as a means of \u201ccleansing from internalized colonialism.\u201d In other words, Haitians \u2013 at the behest of university-led anthropologists and culture studies professors \u2013 have intentionally dived back into the pagan religion of the island\u2019s original inhabitants. The problem is, as one self-described \u201cqueer, two-spirit, Afro-Taino neurodivergent, disabled disruptor\u201d wrote, this has led to \u201clateral violence\u201d (societal facetiousness and unrest). That\u2019s because the Taino religion, made in the image of the Taino deities, is abominably violent and factious. The religion had a traumatic impact on the health of the Taino people, with more than 250,000 of them dying by suicide (or by feeding poison to their infants) in Haiti within the 16th Century.<\/p>\n\n\n\n