chantel nouseforaname’s Reviews > The Conjuring of America: Mojos, Mermaids, Medicine, and 400 Years of Black Women’s Magic > Status Update

This book is still incredible. White evil knows no bounds! However, the women, the mothers, those connected with the earth, those who care.. they made a way, and will forever make a way.

“One of these women was my grandmother, Mary Ann Wooden Perkins. In 1970, she went to the doctor to be treated for a bladder infection. … So she went back to her doctor, who asked her, “How many kids do you have?” She replied, “Two.” He told her, “Two is enough,” and pressured her to have a hysterectomy. She was only twenty-three years old. She still thinks on that doctor’s visit to this day.”

These doctors especially resented the rise in taxes due to institutions like Medicaid. Due to their belief in eugenics, many of these doctors did not believe that these social benefit programs could help the poor. … So these doctors often took out their anger stealthily upon the Black population.

— racist, abusive, violating human rights.. of course they were probably sexual miscreants too.

She [Ursula] reminds us of the Black conjure women who have dotted our history for centuries. And like many conjure women, Ursula is read as evil for trying to (rightfully) usurp the man who rendered her an outcast from her own kingdom. But what would it mean to retell Ursula’s story from the juncture of African, Caribbean, and European mermaid lore that arose in the nineteenth century?

“These free women of color were spiritual leaders of their community, and the secret Voodoo meetings they led were the worst nightmare of the Americans, who feared that the mixture of racial classes would especially foment revolt. The Americans did not understand the gods these women worshipped, but they knew well enough that where Black mermaids went, so, too, came rebellion.”

“Given the history of Haitian Vodou and African American conjure women, it’s not a surprise to me that white people of the far right have said that Kamala Harris’s career-long success is due to “witchcraft.”

“Making these claims in the middle of a debate opposite our first Black and South Asian woman presidential candidate, Kamala Harris, sends a warning signal to white Americans: If this Black woman gets elected to office, chaos will ensue—just like in the Haitian Revolution.”

“I suspect this is why, in the 2024 presidential debate, Donald Trump invoked the baseless rumor that Haitian immigrants in Springfield were stealing people’s cats and dogs and eating them.4 He was insinuating that Haitian immigrants were performing animal sacrifices as part of secret Vodou meetings.”