How 'voodoo' became a metaphor for evil

'Voodoo' has come to represent something evil when it appears in popular culture. 'Black magic', witchcraft – it's always portrayed as something to be feared. But in reality, Vodou, as it's correctly written, is an official religion practised by millions of people. Why has it been vilified for so long? Josh Toussaint-Strauss looks back over the history of Haitan Vodou and Louisiana Voodoo, which is a separate belief system altogether, and its portrayal to find an answer Subscribe to The Guardian on YouTube ► http://is.gd/subscribeguardian Support the Guardian ► https://support.theguardian.com/contr... Today in Focus podcast ► https://www.theguardian.com/news/seri... Sign up for the Guardian documentaries newsletter ► https://www.theguardian.com/info/2016... The Guardian ► https://www.theguardian.com The Guardian YouTube network: Guardian News ►    / guardianwires   Guardian Football ►    / guardianfootball   Guardian Sport ►    / guardiansportvideo   Guardian Live ►    / guardianmembership   Guardian Culture ►    / guardianculturearts   Further reading: Haiti Unbound: A Spiralist Challenge to the Postcolonial Canon https://www.jstor.org/stable/j.ctt5vjfnr Desire and Disaster in New Orleans: Tourism, Race, and Historical Memory https://www.dukeupress.edu/desire-and... Horror Noire: Blacks in American Horror Films from the 1890s to Present https://www.amazon.com/Horror-Noire-B... Why Can’t Black Witches Get Some Respect in Popular Culture? https://www.vulture.com/2017/10/black... The Appropriation of Magic: How White People Demonised Voodoo https://brizomagazine.com/2020/06/15/... 200 Years of Forgetting: Hushing up the Haitian Revolution https://www.jstor.org/stable/40027220... The Haiti Reader: History, Culture, Politics https://www.dukeupress.edu/the-haiti-... Yorùbá Influences on Haitian Vodou and New Orleans Voodoo https://www.jstor.org/stable/40034365 From 'Voodooism' to 'Vodou': Changing a US Library of Congress Subject Heading https://www.jstor.org/stable/41949200 Perceptions of New Orleans Voodoo: Sin, Fraud, Entertainment, and Religion https://www.jstor.org/stable/10.1525/...