ABSTRACT
In this chapter, I will discuss how a religious devotion to the image of a tortured black woman is understood by different social actors, and the impact those understandings have upon the actors' everyday lives. In what follows I move between the voices of black movement activists, white, morena,and negra devotees, and my own roving, restless, everglossing voice. My objective is to gather these voices together onto the same pages, to place them into contact and confrontation with one other. Activists may hear some voices that confirm their presuppositions about the color politics at work among Anastácia's devotees, and some that complicate them. White, morena,and negra devotees may encounter here surprising differences among themselves. My own voice, rooted in North American history, brings to this meeting place its own distinctive set of ideas about race, and I feel alternately vindicated and frustrated at every turn.
