Abstract

This article puts forth the argument that in the Haitian Diaspora in the United States of America a new Haitian identity has emerged among Haitian youth, which is tied to the black practical consciousness of the black American underclass. The black American in the post industrial

capitalist world-system of America are no longer Africans.Instead, their practical consciousnesses are the product of two structurally differentiated identities, the negro, i.e., black bourgeoisie, or African Americans, on the one hand, under the leadership of educated professionals and preachers; and the “my Nigga,” i.e., the black underclass, on the other hand, under the leadership of street and prison personalities, athletes, and entertainers vying for ideological and linguistic domination of black America.

These two social class language games were historically constituted by different ideological apparatuses, the church and education on the one hand and the streets, prisons, and the athletic and entertainment industries on the other, of the global capitalist racial-class structure of inequality under American hegemony, which replaced the African ideological apparatuses of Vodou, peristyles, lakous, and agricultural production as found in Haiti. Among Haitian youth in the US diaspora, post-1986 following the topple of Jean-Claude “baby doc” Duvalier, the latter would come to serve as the bearer of ideological and linguistic domination, forming the “my nigga Haitian” identity.

Keywords African americanization; Racial identity; Religiosity; Black diaspora; Spiritualism