Henry Louis Gates is considered an authority on Black culture, which he teaches at Harvard. I have met him, he gave a speech at my university several years ago. He certainly has a scholarly demeanor about him. The flap about the cop who got after him for trying to get into his own house has really nothing whatever to do with his knowledge of anything. I do not think most people are likely to be gentlemanly after returning home to find their door stuck and then being harassed by a Cambridge (not Boston) cop who somehow thought that an elderly crippled man was some sort of cat burglar. But all that was resolved by the famous and peaceful beer summit.
In 1999, I was stopped by a Miami Beach cop who told me that his records showed that my bent 1989 Hyundai Excel did not belong to me. It took him 30 minutes and 5 registration forms for him to finally let me go and admit that he had made a mistake. I did not show anger. But I was really annoyed. Who steals a bent 10 year old Hyundai and forges 10 years of registrations that have the proper plate and sticker number? Gates reports that he is part Irish. I am mostly English and Dutch. Perhaps this might have something to do with it.
Henry Louis Gates - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
This discussion is about Haitian vodou, and Gates does not speak Creole. He does, however, interview a Haitian vodou priest on this documentary which should be judged on its own merits and not all that crap over why a crippled Black professor got upset with a policeman when he was trying to get into his own house.
In the PBS series, Gates is not presented as the authority, but as the interviewer, and if you watch it, you might see that he does quite a good job of interviewing the various Dominicans and Haitians that do present their point of view about African culture in their country. It is true that he was born in West Virginia, but I do not think that this disqualifies him from serving as an interviewer on a PBS documentary.
I was born in Missouri and once lived and taught in WV for 4 years, and I do not think that being born in WV disqualifies anyone from anything. I cannot comment on who knows the most, since I do not know the moderator you mention.
I make no claims to being an expert on the DR, a place I have visited six times. I know even less about Haitian vodou, but my impression is that the manifestations of vodun and Cuban santer?a I have seen are rather a far cry from scholarly works I have read and documentaries I have seen on these folk religions.
Peace