Alright, time to go back to relatively normal things. I’m still going through my EEOC situation and definitely will try to modify donation so it won’t be via YouCaring but something a little more for the long term because I don’t feel right by keeping it up when I’m sure there’s an alternative.
“In the Pagan community I interact with (which is mostly white), conversations often revolve around trying to figure out which of the European ethnic groups a person descends from is the one he/she/ze feels the most connected to, or identifies the most with, in order to pick out which flavor of ethnic Paganism (Germanic/Irish/etc.) to practice. I pointed out that this was a part of white privilege, from not having been subjected to the ethnocide of slavery, and that African-Americans didn’t have the luxury of picking out which ethnic group they feel like the most. One responder said that all African-Americans had to do was take a genetic test to determine which ethnic group they’re descended from, and make a pagan religion based on that.
So, that is making me ask: have you ever asked yourself, “should I take a DNA test to determine where my family came from to figure out which religion to practice?” Has this question ever come up in conversations you’ve been a part of? Is this subject important to the Pagan community you belong to?”
– T.T.R.
Dude, the best you can do is just find another community and be off. Honestly, you sound like you’re hanging with SS sympathizers, Aryan wannabes and Trump’s voting bloc.
And you’re right, it is part of White privilege to be able to go up and down the family tree and know who you were related to several centuries ago. While I’m sure other folks may go, “Hey, Asian American folks can trace back their family lines centuries and they’re not White!” but here’s the thing: they’re not seen as the yardstick of “this is a human” and we’re not even reaching into exclusion acts, separations of families, etc. It’s not the same.
Black families can’t really trace back further than their great grandparent without outside help because of the drastic effects of chattel slavery where Black people were bought, sold, murdered and traded like animals. And then you have to throw in lynchings, which, like police-related murders, aren’t well tracked and traced so there’s a not-so-mysterious vortex that makes missing people because not every brutal murder started with an iconic burning cross. It’s as simple as a kid walking to a library on an open road and a group of White people spotting them and going “Let’s kill ’em.” White folks don’t have boughs of broken branches littered throughout their family trees annnnnnnnd they’re collectively the reason why.
Maybe you should suggest the suggester take a DNA test…which, by the by, costs money, time and isn’t completely accurate without heavy searching on your part. How do I know this? I worked in the Library of Congress, we have countless data on people but it slims up dramatically the darker the people get.
And it’s not the same as how White people learn about their families. If the person was German, ask if they would like to only be able to learn about who their family is strictly through Holocaust records because, without fishing deep through some of the worst experiences of history, they wouldn’t they know anything beyond their parent or grandparent because the test they paid hundreds for only tells them they’re of whatever percentage that they are. Those tests don’t really give names and experiences that are the same as what an aunt or elder could share. And these tests have to rely on submitted (and accepted) history… which, by the way, can be burned, erased via genocide – or near genocide -, rejected/destroyed due to colonization and systematic bigotry (also known as, “The institution of academia can look very easily like a Klan member armed with a dictionary, white-out and an over active imagination”). There’s a bunch of data missing from history due to douchebags. Useful history that an elder would be more likely to know than the Library of Congress. Because it’s about your family in all its oddities, something books and datasheets gloss over.
Books and sheets won’t tell you about how your great great great great great cousin was a chicken thief but your great great great great grandpop made things right by running a community bank and food pantry that helped everyone flourish because he had the right knack for figuring out exactly when to plant and fish. Or that really dumb thing that your 13X great relative did that wound up creating a law that still exists to this present day because when your relative pranked people, they always went big… which somehow floated down the family line and now shows via a niece having a “social experiment/prank” channel on Youtube that occasionally goes viral because pastel-dyed skunks released in City Hall was a funny idea to her. But not so much to the mayor and council members, who may pass a small ordinance over this. You know, the little bits of history that a DNA test forgets. So, again, that was a dumb suggestion.
Oh, and here’s another reason why it’s dumb: because if you’re Black, you have to find who owned your family and hope they kept good records because that’s not a promise either. And it’s gonna be depressing. Like, discovering your great, great, great aunt had their eyes burnt out with acid and fire and then lashed and lynched for simply being caught with a book since she wanted to learn how to read at the age of 45. Or how splintered your family was because of how often they got sold…or used as alligator bait.
And we do have indigenous faiths that stem from African beliefs: Santeria, Voudon, Hoodoo, Igbo, Maasai, etc etc etc. Duh.
Now, that’s already good and done. No need a DNA test for that. And is that person 100% German? 100% Anglo? 100% Welsh? 100% Scotts? Given that they’re American, I’m gonna ballpark that’s a “no”. Like, if that’s how they feel, I’m sure they can go back to Europe to be as true as possible; they’re not even on the right continent, let alone in the right country. But they’re going to need a magical blood separator to divide all those flavors of mayo they are if they want to be full-force, “Hitler would be proud, totes gonna vote for Trump” about it. I wonder what genetic test they took to figure out what branch of Paganism they’re going to follow. I mean, they sound like they probably couldn’t pass a literacy test so I’m sure they were none too bright to consider that.
Have I ever thought, “I should get a DNA test because I hang around neo-Nazis so I have something to tell them?” No. Why? It’s dumb and they aren’t showing me their files first so why should I have to take a test on my genetics? So they know exactly what patches to give me?
I didn’t have to figure out what part of my family came from where to figure out what version of Paganism to practice. Hey, even Christianity doesn’t have such a threshold…as well as other religions. Because it’s ridiculous. This sounds so Aryan, it’s moronic. This subject isn’t very important to any Pagan community I want to belong to. The Pagan community in the Western world is already racist enough, we don’t need people who take that hate to the next level.
Find other people to hang with, these people are eventually going to do something worse than just chat religious-flavored eugenics. And you’re not going to get a burning cross or spray-painted swastika as a warning.
To the letter writer, Black Witch is totally right. You sound like you found a horrible group for both you personally and your spiritual growth. If you want to stick around and try and enlighten them, you’ll probably burn out. Instead, get out. Hit up a pagan website to find another group, or maybe take some time as a solitary to get in touch with your own beliefs without their influence for a while.
Personally, this has never come up in any of the Pagan groups I’ve belonged to either in the Midwest or in the Mid Atlantic. Even the Norse pagans I know don’t pull that kind of bullsh*t, and that’s stereotypically where people find that kind of ethnic purity talk. (Then again, I’m eclectic/ transtheoretical so I just use whichever deity seems right for my ritual at the time. I have favorites, but I certainly don’t limit myself to one set way of understanding the divine that’s based on antiquated ideas of heritage. Even in antiquity, people borrowed and re-purposed each other’s deities all the time). You do you.
Ehhhh, I’m in the Mid Atlantic, it happens. A lot. I know Black Pagans in the Midwest, it happens. A lot. Norse Pagans will pull this kind of bullsh*t and at a very regular interval at that. The best case scenario for the writer is to find a POC Pagan group to be with but they’re super scant if they really want to avoid racism in large. This is dealing with racist Pagans, not simply “take a DNA test” ones.
One thing I always tell people is to work with the culture that the deity work with. If a Black Pagan want to work with Roman gods, that’s fine because Roman influences are literally everywhere in our current Western culture. No one blew off the noses of Roman emperors. If a White Pagan wanted to work with African gods, I would tell them to slam the breaks and maybe strongly reconsider if they know nothing about Black history, culture or the role their privilege plays in it. There’s “Hey, I want to work with these gods since I feel a pull with them”, then there’s “hey I work with these gods I barely understand because I was introduced to them through a super narrow scope and I’m not interested in learning about anything else, like the people and culture that made them, in a humanizing way.”
Well the big 3 religions of the book tend to be universalist in approach: Accept the beliefs and practices of the religion and you’re in, usually regardless of ethnicity/race.
Yes, one could join an ATR , but honestly not every POC is drawn to them and, since Ancestor veneration is a foundation of those religions, one cannot pick and choose which Ancestors to work with regardless of their race or how they became part of your lineage. So you may find oneself required to do spiritual work for the enlightenment and elevation of that slave owner who may , from the spirit world feel remorse and wants to make restitution to their descendants of every color. Many AAs are very uncomfortable with this aspect of Ancestor work, though it may be those very Ancient people from their European lines calling them to help revive those pre-Christian spiritual practices.
There are non-race/ethnicity based Heathen groups that focus more on devotion to the Gods rather than race / ethnicity.Try the HUAR site, perhaps they have a list of appropriate groups. Truthfully, N.Europeans travelled far and wide and spread their DNA accordingly within the peoples they encountered so having some random genetic requirement is futile.
The is kind of messiness about who can join culturally based religions is a result of poor teaching of history in general, and a major lack of accuracy and truth in the American history curriculum as to, well just about everything, especially though,as regards POC contributions to American culture and the amount of mixing that happened.The average White American does not usually consider themselves as mixed,though their family names, history and DNA usually tells a different story. Our ignorance about the cultural and ethnic diversity in Europe allows us to view them as generically White, though a person of say Finnish and English descent is of mixed ethnicity too. Which Gods should they worship ?
A slave master feeling remorse XD Doubt that would be common in the spirit world and I can’t think of any Black pagan that would waste much time on that dude when there are actual ancestors to care for who never got anything for their deeds but continual trashing from history books if not outright erasure. If the Black Pagan has to do spirit work to help ol’ massa along for elevation to do well in that group, it’s time to find a new group who can better understand that this is vastly unnecessary and would do more harm to the practitioner than good (Black folks are already told endlessly to cape for White people while they’re still breathing, now they have to help one that’s dead and currently living the life of a camp marshmallow?) Many Black folks would be uncomfortable for the right reasons, kinda like someone with a German heritage that extends back to the camps, it would be unnecessary and harmful to the practitioner to basically personally atone the people who cooked their family. That job should be for the German practitioner who didn’t have a history that goes into the camps, to go, “Hey, you’re a douche, we’re not denying it. And I’m going to work with you because I have to own up to the fact I benefitted massively from your douchebaggery.”
Just like how White people feel it’s obscenely needed to drag their ancestors and histories into even working with Afro-Caribbean cultures and deities, a Black practitioner can do the same with their own ancestries. They’re still honoring their ancestors, just in a different way. I’m sure the ATR deities would be okay with that because they understand emotional and familial value and bond, which is ancestor veneration. And it doesn’t matter if not every minority person wants to do ATR, not every one who is from the actual Euro backgrounds relevant to ATR want to partake in ATR either. Because it’s a personal option. It’s true, N. Euro folks raped and colonized and pillaged quite expansively, it would be stupid to say, “You can’t be here because XYZ.”
Continuing on that, it is absurd to imply such genetic requirement, that is true. And it’s always interesting that such requirements pop up when someone non-White pops up. Never amongst the group itself, they need an “outsider” to make them think, “Uhhhh, how do we tell them, ‘Whites Only’ without saying ‘Whites Only’?”
Let me give a bit of back ground, I am an initiate of the Lucumi religion and a Pagan hard polytheist of over 20 years, so I’ve seen and experienced the horrible behaviors you speak of.
I can’t speak for Haitian Vodou or Palo, but in Lucumi All of your ancestors who contributed in some way to you physically existing are Egun and therefore may potentially have something to offer in terms of restitution for negative actions during life or they could still be total asshats. Now, this type of spirit work is not about automatic blanket forgiveness in a fuzzy new age form. Forgiveness must be ASKED for and EARNED and given freely on the part of the victimized party should they choose to give it. And I will admit that this type of work isn’t everyone’s cup of tea. No one is required to accept a spirits entreaties if they choose not to.
Do you honestly believe that spirits can’t evolve after death to understand the harm they caused in life, or feel remorse ?
Ehhhhh, I’m doubting you’ve seen and experienced what I’ve seen and experienced.
Spirits can but Black folks can’t even get White folks currently breathing to understand so why should it be them and not the White Pagans helping out to curb and help the slaver along? It’s literally the metaphysical version of “Why can’t *you* do the leg work for us in making us understand why we shouldn’t hate you? We’ll never understand without you wasting your time and energy of us battling you, even when we’re sympathetic and want to change?” It’s a pain with they’re alive, even more so when they’re planted.
I’m sure they *could* evolve after death but I wouldn’t care for their remorse. They got to die without true repercussions while they were alive and I’d chalk it up to “you’re upset you’re currently living the life of kindling, not actually upset by your actions”, otherwise they would understand genuinely why they’re having a crap afterlife and not in need of my help to save them from their own properly justified punishment since they escaped it so well while they were alive. If anything, they’d be trying to bend over backwards to do *me* favors out of atonement, not to get out of purgatory.
And I strongly doubt Lucumi – which is a Afro-Cuban folk who you said you’re not part of, just an outsider – has a deity or practice that fully goes into “let’s work with the spirits of people who literally tried to obliterate us and our religion and culture”. I reeeeeeeaaaally doubt that, judging from my background knowledge in Pan-African faiths…and the intersection of being Black while knowing about these faiths.
And I don’t think anyone wants to build praise for the rapist in their family tree, which many slave owners were. This is energy waaaaay better spent on trying to heal the ancestors that were vastly hurt and need the comfort, not the vicious, awful people who took their lives from them long before killing them. That’s more of what I’ve heard, masters and suches were very much erased because why still want to work with them after death? And given current society, I doubt many slavers would change after croaking.
I would be odd as I have no feelings of ties to my ancestors, but then we never had much contact to even close ancestors, or me to my father even though I lived in the same house as he did. So even tracing some of my ancestry leaves me with no particular feeling. I just honestly have no reason to believe any of them would care what happens to me.
But you are right this guy was dealing with people who did not care anything about him so move on. No one should hang around that kind of BS.
Great writing, I appreciate your perspective. For what it’s worth, you might be interested in my own perspective based in Satanism. In response to what I thought to be very ignorant accusations, I’m writing my way through the basic tenets of Satanism with respect to racism. I’ve got a few more segments to go to finish the whole thing, but if you’re interested you’re welcome to read it here: [link removed] Cheers, -James
Unfortunately, I’m not very interested. I did read your site but I don’t think it’s much to pitch here, hence why I removed the link. I didn’t like the “I have so much White guilt I count as Black” phrasing I came across because White guilt doesn’t equate Black identity at all under any circumstances. White guilt is a response to your own privilege, that’s not what Black people encounter or feel.
That’s cool; it’s your website and you can moderate links as you see fit. Regarding the comment you mentioned, though, that’s not something I said about myself – that was an accusation made against me by another person. Happy trails.
Ah, I see. Crappy comment on their part, then.
This was aa lovely blog post
Thank you
I doubt it’s going away for a while. There’s a reason why Trump is doing reaaaaaaaaally well in the polls and Sanders is nearly every White liberal darling with his one bit of footage of a protest he was part of back when Hector was a pup and now “allies” think that Black folks should flock to him like Jesus. Racism is very sneaky and hard to rid of, like bed bugs.
It seems built into the system, the politics and the society from the very beginning. For those of us that reached adulthood in the early 1960s, we had such hope and were inspired by such people as President Kennedy and Dr. King. It even appeared that occasionally progress was being made. However that appears to have been an illusion dished up to us by the media that had nothing to do with what was actually happened. It looks just as ugly today as it did in the in the late fifties and the early sixties, but without any real hope. Still it has to be gotten rid of, or this country is toast, which may already be the case.
So the long battle continues and we have to be ready to continue it as long as necessary and then after, as those for racism will always fight to bring it back. Just recently the Senate in Tennessee,[ I believe ] fought back a bill that attempted to make inter religious and interracial marriage illegal again.That is how close it is getting.
Black Witch, as many of the people of color face the same problems from racism, is there any possibility of those various communities being able to work together? I admit that I honestly have not a clue about that.
Because Whiteness is see as the goal and the baseline of existence, it really fractures PoC communities from really working together (and their own identities). There’s anti-Blackness, for one, because that’s the stark opposite of Whiteness (think about it, Whiteness is seen as “holy”, “good”, “wonderful”. Blackness is seen as “ugly”, “evil”, “wicked”. Nobody wants to be designated or strive for that). This is why Whiteness is pretty lethal, to an extent.
Yeah, this country is pretty toasted.
Because Whiteness is see as the goal and the baseline of existence, it really fractures PoC communities from really working together (and their own identities). There’s anti-Blackness, for one, because that’s the stark opposite of Whiteness (think about it, Whiteness is seen as “holy”, “good”, “wonderful”. Blackness is seen as “ugly”, “evil”, “wicked”. Nobody wants to be designated or strive for that). This is why Whiteness is pretty lethal, to an extent.
Yeah, this country is pretty toasted.
I am afraid you may be right of the country being toasted. Civilizations that do not learn from their mistakes and become corrupt fall, as they should. It is the only way for new civilizations to develop.
While the one percent can just move to another continent and another one of their mansions, most of the rest of us will suffer from the fall. To start with all those other countries and cultures that we have interfered with, or destroyed, will want pay back and it is hard to say that they don’t deserve it. But that will affect the innocent more than the guilty as most of us have no say so in what the 1% were up to in business or in government. I am a old man, so my time is nearly up. But for the kids and the young people of today, it is going to be a rough time when it was nothing that they ever had any say so in, nor any power to prevent it.