And if there is a dramatic difference, besides language, between there and here, it is that the Cubans, no matter how white their skin, do not deny the fundamental Africanness of who they are the way Southern White people do, assiduously. Visiting this babalawo helped me think about that fact. What exhaustion must be required to passionately deny that which has shaped so much of who you are? Maybe this is part of the White evangelical discipline of prayer. To absolve the self-denial. To drown it in catharsis. White Cubans have no need. But I do not think that is a mark of virtue as much as it
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