Category: Race


Snowdrift Opinions

Filed under: Pagan Life, Race — 2 Comments
February 9, 2014

Wow, it’s been a two weeks of race stuff for me. First, it starts with after the Grammys and how everyone is pissed that Macklemore swept the rap section (I don’t really have an opinion over that musically since I’m firmly in the rock part of the business but Nikki Lynette wrote a really good piece on it as a Grammy voter). And finishes with some why-don’t-you-spoon-feed-me pandering.

We’ll start with the music stuff since that happened first.

See, on Tumblr, it all started with an ask that was very well answered by Something Wratchet about why folks are up in hackles over why Macklemore won, particularly over Kendrick Lammar because it is like the best metaphor of gentrification ever:

Ask answered by Something Wratchet

And what it turned into was a quagmire because a random White Pagan with, as he says, no knowledge of music, music industry or anything that could translate into intellectual discussion on this topic decided to stumble in and throw around what is usually nicknamed White Opinions everywhere and then shifted almost seamlessly into White Tears. Yep, this guy, Pathfinder-Tarot, is exhibit A, B, C and D of why White Pagans can’t make friends with minority Pagans so easily. Check below and click to read the whole thing:

Click to read the whole thing

Click the pic to read the whole thing, it’s a doozy

White Pagans really should collect this guy and talk to him about why for a person with pathfinder in the name, he’s hella lost mentally. I even had the chance to pull out the bingo board (and the ignore button because if he’s following me for my content, maybe he could try elsewhere since he doesn’t deserve it as a non-ally, maybe leave the religion altogether.)

The bingo board o’ destiny!

'Da Bingo Board o' Destiny!!!!!! Derailment Bingo

‘Da Bingo Board o’ Destiny!!!!!!
Derailment Bingo

You can print and play at home. I didn’t even read the rest of the whinging after a certain point because for someone who called me angry (how dismissive, I’m apparently angry because y’know, that’s the only setting I can be on when discussing race because if there’s one thing White folks who are clearly caught up in their feelings don’t like, it’s how the person they’re talking to might have a point) he’s just crying and crying and crying to the tune of “won’t someone please think of the White people! We’re all human! Can’t you just ignore the past like we want you to?!” Seriously, if the guy is this bereft of knowledge of why Macklemore’s win is problematic racially, he probably has zero clue why the lgbt community doesn’t like this guy so much as media does. His song “same love” starts off with him basically saying “I had a gay scare in 3rd grade because I was doing all the stereotypical gay people things I learned that only gay people do, glad mom set me straight”. If the best song about queer love is by a dude who had a brief worrisome moment that he might actually be queer, thaaaaaaat’s saying something.

And folks, if you’re going to talk to me about privilege, don’t be like Pathfinder-tarot and not know the difference between different forms of privilege such as class privilege from racial privilege because that Ukraine reference is from way out of left field in his futile attempt to derail the conversation. I’m academically trained in this stuff, please know what they hell you’re talking about before getting caught up in your feelings. Especially if you’re going to say you’re not an ally because to say you’re not an ally to a minority, this is what they hear: “I’m a racist and proud of it. I wanna be best friends with George Zimmerman and regularly watch Fox News. Obama is the worst president we ever had because he’s Black.” The only opposite of ally is pretty much bigot, there’s not a lot of gray area and if you’re declaring to be the opposite of ally, then you don’t deserve respect.

I do appreciate the assist from Tumblr user, thedappledsky because for a 19 year old, she’s very sharp as a tack and I like that because this guy was super annoying and would not shut up, good gods. Even brought up his zodiac sign as if that’s some major declaration of will or something impactful. That’s how you could tell he was way out of his league on the conversation and deserves to be hung high for other White Pagans to see why they should just keep their mouth shut or if they believe minority Pagans are making up all the interactions they have. Seriously, collect your boy. I’m sure he has an ask box on his tumblr so whatever you want to say to me, just say to him because I don’t care to hear it.

The next one is an ask I got while I was at the Imbolc ritual:

click to read answer. Apparently the tumblr is deactivated now

Click through to read answer. Apparently the tumblr is deactivated now

 

Dude, I know she really means well and usually meaning well would get a nice response out of me but talk about lazy. Seriously? Does she really need to be spoon fed about how to be an ally personally when there’s a) Google b) my website, which has a new section called “race” c) Abagond wordpress, which is in the Links of Interest annnnnnnnd d) There was this really popular comic about how to be a White ally, as explained by a White ally, JamietheignorantAmerican, that made the rounds on Tumblr:

Click to read it all, it's really good and very informative

Click to read it all, it’s really good and very informative

I think I saw this comic in passing at least 5 times in a week, there’s no way this girl could have not seen it. While Bonnieeleven asked really nicely, it annoys me greatly when asked these questions because it means White folks think it’s my job to personally educate them only for them to never retain the information. They’ll forever make flubs just to come back again to a different person to be spoon-fed information once more. There is Google, there are tons of information out there to help teach them what to do from folks who could explain it better than I ever could. There’s that comic I just posted!!!! That comic gets it! There’s even really useful links at the bottom of that Tumblr for White allies!!!! If you can research metaphysical tomes that takes hours to find, then you can do a basic research on how to use your privilege in a constructive manner that doesn’t turn into pulling a Macklemore or being an insufferable White liberal (which is pretty much the same as pulling a Macklemore). Actually, I like this writing by The Cynical Witch titled The PPC and STFU. She gets it, too. Read, understand and comprehend. This part drives the point right home, after citing my work:

It is not my job, or hers, to educate you on the myriad ways you (and I) benefit from white privilege. Instead, I am going to ask the long time members of the pagan community to stand up. I want to know: why are you letting this happen?

Simple, ain’t it?

As for Bonnieeleven, I wasn’t able to respond to the follow up ask but it seems it would probably have not been worthwhile:

bonask2

First of all, seems like this ask was cut off at the start, I couldn’t find the beginning anywhere. Second of all, why is it so important I give you a pat on the head? One should be fighting against racism and other forms of bigotry because it is the right thing to do, not for brownie points from the oppressed. I could sit here and assume this chick is secretly a Tea Party member and die-hard, Southern bred Republican, complete with Texas education and she should still be fighting against racism and other forms of oppression nonetheless. Would it bum her out? Most likely. Should it stop her? Nah, not really. Look, if you want to be a good ally? Do some leg work instead of asking me to do it for you and expecting brownie points. Allies are better appreciated when they fight oppression for intrinsic reasons (right thing to do), not extrinsic (the oppressed might give you a cookie).

If White Pagans wanted to be of some use to their own religious community, they should cut the White guilt and White anger and just educate themselves instead of annoy their minority Pagan counterparts. It’s not our jobs to teach them how their privilege is harmful when there’s so much info they can find themselves.

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Why Be Here?

Filed under: Pagan Life, Race — 26 Comments
January 17, 2014

So, I’m researching when is the next upcoming high rite to attend at Cedar Light Grove*, which is on February 1st. In this I am reminded of feeling a bit of being different in rituals of past. I usually attend the high rites (which is pretty much the Pagan equivalent to only going to church on Easter and Christmas if you were Christian) because I thought it would be nice to be a bit more social. Maaaaaaan, I feel like a fly in the milk there. The people at the Grove are very nice but I miss being around people who look like me. It sucks when you scan the crowd at the circles and it’s pretty much nothing but White faces and you’re clearly the only Black person there. That and continually thinking, “Good gods, can we get some Mos Def or Lupe Fiasco up in here when we do the music or rhythm parts? At least some ?uestlove,” while time checking the phone sneakily, wondering when ritual will be over.

I have brought it up, of course, to one of the higher ups of the Grove, Ms. Karen. She mentioned that there were Black members of the Grove at different times in the short history the grove has been there but they never seem to stay for the long haul. One thing I do like about Ms. Karen is that she reminds me of Ms. Donna, who I got my first bearings from in Paganism and is thus, fairly straightforward. However, even she jumped quick to mention that they’re not ousting minorities, the minority members are just leaving for their own reasons. I didn’t think the Grove would do anything major to drive people away but it would be nice if some Black Pagans stuck around longer. (Hence why I put up the place’s name and their next high rite in the first two lines of this piece, hint hint.) She suggested that I talk to one of the further higher ups on having a workshop series there for Black Pagans. Although, I didn’t really get a chance to really talk to the people I needed to because it was super late night and discussing business while super sleepy is generally a bad idea. Updates on that will be in the future if I’m successful or not.

I think when I’m there, it reminds me usually of the feeling I get when I’m in massively White spaces…because it’s a massively White space. Sometimes I’m hesitant, just waiting for someone to say something or do something racist and or classist, usually in the form of a micro-aggression. And usually, it happens. When I was at now-defunct Mystickal Voyage, it was someone trying to tell me that slavery ended in 1865 but women are still oppressed today so somehow, I don’t experience racism (nor sexism since apparently by her logic, Black women don’t exist) and that I’m being a wet blanket about a throwback topic from the 1950s. Riiiiight. And I couldn’t really freely interact because being a Black person (or really, any minority) in a majority White space, you have to watch what you say and do because the last you need is someone thinking you gave them the pass to be as openly bigoted as possible and as strongly as possible. I can’t really joke about the fact I was raised in the inner city because someone is going to make a “ghetto” joke or even say the n-word because “Oh hai, a Black person is here and they’re talking about the hood! Let me show how street I can be, freshly learned from Macklemore, Gwyneth Paltrow and Miley Cyrus!” Dude, no.

Let’s pause for a second. I don’t care what anyone else feels, Black, White or otherwise. But I don’t like nor can really stand the n-word. I don’t say it. I don’t like it when others say it either. Not “I don’t mind when Black folks say it but White people can’t.” It’s “I don’t like anyone saying it, Black or White. It’s a crappy word. The end.” Just don’t say it. Seriously. Especially if you’re White. Reaffirm your Whiteness in other ways. Like, join the Tea Party or Westboro Baptist Church or something.

Moving on – I don’t like the feeling I get because I can’t really be me if I have to be on guard regularly. I don’t have to worry about rape jokes, that’s nice. I don’t have to worry about homophobic jokes, huzzah because I don’t like hearing them. The atmosphere is pretty progressive but the thing is, it always seems like race is the last frontier for people to be actually progressive on. Since folks are so afraid to talk about racism (and racism intersectioned classism) because it involves deconstruction of Whiteness and bringing a lot of fetid cesspool thinking to light and people not always feeling happy about themselves or the cultures they were raised in, they just power straight through blindly with all the hidden bigotry they can muster. You know, having the Isis statue with the ski slope nose but freaking out at the person who mentions that Isis shouldn’t have a ski slope nose…nor be lighter than Beyonce or Nicki Minaj. Being ok with having a Yemeya statue that looks like Brighid but nearly going into convulsions when someone brings up that Yemeya should be waaaaaay darker than that. Like, making her darker than 12:01 AM would be more accurate than having her lighter than 12:01 PM. Basically, it’s hard being comfortable somewhere where you should be comfy because you have to worry about been seen as an object to interact with than a individual person.

Thing is, being in White dominated spaces, it’s hard to have a list of topics to talk about. When I’m around other minorities or simply other Black folks in the same backgrounds I’m in, I can talk more freely about things because in case I make a fleeting reference to race or culture, I’m not going to be most likely greeted with micro-aggressive racism/classism right out the gate because the other folks understand where I’m coming from. There’s no risk of hearing, “Not all White people are like that”, or “Well, that’s just your opinion”, or “Isn’t that racist against White people? If the roles were switched, people would be crying racism,” because if I just want to talk about Whitewashing of deities, how Pagan media is so snowpiled to the point it’s almost phony when people say that the face of Paganism is diverse…but somehow keep showing White person after White person after White person, then I want to talk about it without having to hear people trying to reinforce the status quo. I want to be able to talk seamlessly about things, not pit stop every five minutes to explain cultural differences because the person I’m talking to didn’t understand my reference, or worse, learned about the reference from whatever Seth MacFarlane has made and The Wire.

Hey, I still remember the one time one of the other folks at the Grove touched my hair without my permission. I have OCD. Not “Oh, I’m so ocd about how my pens are lined up”, I mean, I have been officially diagnosed with it at least three times. I have had very poor experiences in regards to the fact folks just seem to think I have zero need for personal space (actually, I need a lot, usually). I also have several years (around a decade or so) in martial arts training. I don’t like it when people grab my hair, plain and simple. I’m not a petting zoo. Though the person apologized fairly profusely, it still bugs me because I’m natural haired and it’s really common in White spaces for some random person to up and go yink! if you happen to have an afro or dreads. While I surprised myself for not hitting anyone (remember, I’m a martial artist and this happened behind my back), I still don’t appreciate anyone just randomly touching my hair/head in any way, shape or form. Plus, it makes me concerned that it could happen again in the future because just like any Black person who has been in mixed crowds, just because you explain you don’t like something done to you doesn’t mean folks are going to respect that and stop doing it. If that were the case, racism probably would have been solved a long time ago, ditto with other forms of oppression and bigotry.

I’m Black, I can’t separate that from my identity. I don’t want to either. It’s nice that some Pagan groups want to put in more effort than others but something is not attracting and keeping Black Pagans to stay with these groups. This doesn’t mean that the groups are pretty much Stormfront in eco-safe clothing, there’s just something in the culture that doesn’t allow minorities to really be themselves or to still feel very alone. That can make many Black Pagans feel like it’s time to move on or, like me, just come only during the high rites instead of being a more dedicated member and part of the group.

So, if you’re in the DMV area and you want to spend Imbolc somewhere new, go to Cedar Light Grove. I am not sure if they have overnight rituals every high rite (they did for Winter Solstice and Samhain), but pack a sleeping bag if they do and you want to stay the night. It would be nice to see more diverse faces.

Next week is The Arts!, here is what is being featured:

– Dee1
– Love! Love!
– Deino3330

*This post is not for the intended purposes of shading, reading, criticizing, slighting or dissing Cedar Light Grove. For the most part, they’re pretty ok.

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Erasure

Filed under: Pagan Life, Race — Leave a comment
November 3, 2013

Missed the Ustream on Samhain? Check it out here.

Earlier this week, I was going through my twitter and come to find out the hashtag #SolidarityIsForWhiteWomen, which was created by @Karnythia to take a pointed jab at how feminism in general is not really for all women but mainly framed for White women and their problems, thus thoroughly ignoring the intersection of race and gender and the issues those intersections create. Of course, when the hashtag had hit mainstream media, mainly White women were asked to talk about the hashtag and to talk for minority women, as if they had any clue. And not once was Karnythia ever asked to attend these major media events. If anything, she’s consistently silenced. The most recent (and definitely not surprising) offender is Feministing.

This is wildly problematic.

I remarked on Twitter about this but I’ll say it again: Whitewashing is a very common problem in activist communities and parades under the notion of being colorblind. Maintaining Whiteness and equality activism does not mix. At all.

Let’s start with the whole “But I’m colorblind!” bit since that’s what this form of erasure moves under most commonly.

Calling yourself colorblind is a bad idea because it is usually used to cover up or diminish the extensive and longstanding pain of historically marginalized groups (I like this term a lot better than “people of color”) because the default person in Western culture is White. To say you’re colorblind means you don’t see me nor my history and to you, it doesn’t really matter. One should not claim to be colorblind as a way to say “I don’t judge based on race” because to be honest, if you’re White, you most likely do, even without even knowing it, because that’s just how our culture is structured. To be colorblind is to fall back on the default of Whiteness because the notion of Whiteness isn’t being challenged at all and it’s a terrible attempt to run away from all the generational horrors the notion of Whiteness has caused. Besides, who said I didn’t want you to see my Blackness? My Black identity is very important to me (it’s half this blog’s name for a reason), the problem is when you think my Blackness is a reason to treat me poorly or to think that my opinions are invalid somehow.

Whitewashing is a form of colorblindness. It’s the Janelle Monae Covergirl ads that will praise Monae for being a brilliant, Black woman….but will lighten her skin, not showcase a shade for brown women and forever use White models around her to pimp their wares. Note below:

Notice where Covergirl could have casted two Black dancers behind Monae, they pulled a “colorblind classic” and got two White girls instead. Y’know, to offset the one Black girl that’s front and center. Because it isn’t diversity unless you squeeze random White people in there somewhere, huh? Some White feminist could say “This is feminism!” but it really it isn’t because you’re still marginalizing the impact Janelle Monae could have on others via tokenizing her. Namely, the others being Black girls, who are consistently forgotten or disregarded in makeup advertisement. Even Covergirl, despite saying they have a diverse pick of women to represent them, seem to really just want to continually push the image of White or White-passing girls. They may say their color blind but it’s clear they show that they’re moreso snowblind because it’s not a mistake that they keep lightening their browner models in advertisements, do not make extensive products for darker women, do not keep darker girls ads running as long as their lighter counterparts and do not continually pick darker minorities to put at the forefront. Almost as if they’re still trying to maintain the status quo of Whiteness but try to throw out a bone to everyone else now and again.

This is just one example of many. How about the meme’s that even White Feminists had tout: “I’m a strong, independent Black woman that don’t need no man!” Or how about the movie The Help, which pretty much was White Savorism just in the gender of girl. Or the fact that White feminists were okay with someone holding up a quote from wife beater singer John Lennon saying “Woman is the n****r of the world” at a Slutwalk a couple years ago. They were not only okay with it, some went as far as to defend it, completely forgetting that Black folks can be women too.

Instead of pretending a terrible history did not happen at the hands of forcing the ideal of Whiteness, try to acknowledge and offset it. That means being aware of the fact that minorities are forever running into institutionalized racism and bigotry, which is what the hashtag #SolidarityIsForWhiteWomen is about. The hashtag was to highlight how minority women, even in the throes of Feminism, are constantly forgotten, erased or told to pipe down. Back when White women were trying to prove that they could handle having a job and that they weren’t dainty princesses needing to be coddled and protected, Black women were forced as day workers, mammies, to have jobs taking care of White women because being stuck at home was not an option. Especially since Black women weren’t even seen as human on the same level as White women…which still occurs today. Think this is all recent chatter? Nah, Sojourner Truth talked about this, here’s a clickable excerpt below:

“That man over there says that women need to be helped into carriages, and lifted over ditches, and to have the best place everywhere. Nobody ever helps me into carriages, or over mud-puddles, or gives me any best place! And ain’t I a woman? Look at me! Look at my arm! I have ploughed and planted, and gathered into barns, and no man could head me! And ain’t I a woman? I could work as much and eat as much as a man – when I could get it – and bear the lash as well! And ain’t I a woman? I have borne thirteen children, and seen most all sold off to slavery, and when I cried out with my mother’s grief, none but Jesus heard me! And ain’t I a woman?”

This is from the 1851, everyone. It’s currently 2013, going onto 2014. Talk about outdated and overdue.

I just do not feel that anyone who is an activist can do so while trying to uphold Whiteness because the both can’t coexist. You can’t fight for equality between genders but then display a passive form of racism through erasure to those that are supposed to be in your own ranks. Or a more active form of racism and crash into someone else’s space to claim as your own, which is what happened to the hashtag #SolidarityIsForWhiteWomen. It’s important for minority women to have their own spaces to talk about their issues, injecting White opinions won’t help anyone because nothing gets fixed and the idea of Whiteness is still left unchecked. This shows that we’re not even allowed even the smallest, most minute-appearing spaces (such as a Twitter tag) because, just like the appearance of Janelle Monae’s visage in a commercial for a brand that notoriously does not pitch to minority women fairly, it is somehow perceived as a threat to Whiteness and in an act of maintaining “colorblindedness”, is to be watered down as much as possible until it’s practically all White with a slight hint of “other”.

To say “Let’s be colorblind” can seem like saying “let’s forget alllllllllll about all the things oppression has done and let’s start fresh. Let’s keep it all White, but throw in a couple tokens. Worked for SNL.” It’s not taking a look at history, it’s not dismantling anything, it’s just saying, “Let’s move on because it makes me, the privileged party, feel uncomfortable.”

But hey, I guess one can still be an activist and still maintain Whiteness. I mean, the Tea Party and the Ku Klux Klan showcase that pretty effectively. No one is going to see you as progressive but hey, you’ll be fighting for something. Just not equality.

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Is That So?

Filed under: Pagan Life, Race — 7 Comments
October 18, 2013

Y’know, I was going to write about Black representation in media regarding supernatural theme shows, then I thought, “Nahhhhhhh, I’ll write about Black culture and its relationship (or lack thereof) with mental illness.” Newp. Instead, I’m going to write about erasure of identity, thanks to a conversation I had online.

One of the worst things you can say to anyone who lacks privilege is “we’re all human”. Okay, not worst but it practically heads the top ten list of most annoying. Its sibling saying is, “yeah but that was in the past, it’s different now.”

No. No it isn’t.

While it is true that we all bleed red, some of us have bled far more than others. And not only have we bled, we’re told to just up and get over it, it’s only a flesh wound. It is very important to not neglect the fact that injustices happened to historically marginalized groups, ever, because it is disrespectful to our history. And when the privileged suffer some sort of injustice, regardless however small in comparison to the bigger picture, they want parades, holidays and commemorative plaques to bear the incident in memory. (See: Occupy Wall St., discussions of 9/11)

What started all this was a friend of mine (and reader of this blog) was told by an elderly White woman that she, a Black girl, would have loved living in the ‘50s. Friend said it was awkward because, well, the ‘50s may have been cute and dandy for Whites, it sure wasn’t for everyone else. Of course, pretty much everyone agreed until a random White girl appeared and tried to say that why were we giving the ‘50s a bad rap? The elderly lady was talking about fashion and such, why bring up the start-up of what we know now as the Civil Rights Movement? People tried explaining to her that the ‘50s was a much different time for Blacks than it was for Whites. It was a much less happier time that also had sharp fashion but also lynchings, bombings and other things that I and any other sensible Negro kinda personally wouldn’t want to experience just for some poodle skirts and victory rolls. She, of course, didn’t get it because she continued with saying we’re being oppressive towards an old White lady because we thought she should have said either nothing at all or a basic “you look nice”.

Oppressive.

She legit used the word “oppressive”.

Us saying (after the fact) that the lady made a White privilege-induced brain fart is on key with bombing a church, using intimidation tactics to prevent people from exercising their right to vote (or live for that matter. Y’know “life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness” and all that jazz), stringing people from trees and using police force as well as psych campaigns when those dang colored folk started demanding rights. Y’know, like they actually were the primary reason the country they reside in is a super power nation.*

Oh really now?

Ok, I have mostly a Black Pagan readership (which I’m proud of because it means I’m attracting the right people, the target audience) but for the random White reader (which makes me wonder: why are you here? Unless one you happen to be Jane Elliot. You rawk. \m/,), lemme give you a lil’ briefer on history, minorities and crimes against humanity:

Don’t ever say we should forget or call us angry or upset as if it’s irrational. If the subject matter makes you feel bad, that’s good, it should make you feel bad because it was absolutely atrocious. Very bad. Absolutely horrible. It just means your humanity is kicking in and your natural sense of right and wrong is calibrated correctly. You have got to remember that it wasn’t all hopscotch and happy days for everyone back in the past. Don’t ignore other perspectives because they make you feel weird when brought to light. You don’t have the right to make that call. You’ve barely the right to get moody about it, let alone try to tell people that it was the past and how we’re past that now. No. No we’re not. A teen was shot in Florida because he wore something that made a random, emotionally unstable bigot go into first-person shooter mode. That was 2012. It’s 2013. And that’s just one case, there are many, many cases and incidents that don’t get the same coverage. Racism is alive and well. People still lob slurs at minorities, check out a Youtube comment section if you don’t believe me. Check out Miley Cyrus’ VMA performance (which was mere months ago) if you don’t believe me. Stop deluding yourself because you’re not directly impacted by the problem but benefit from it, no need to get upset when folks point that out.

Think of racism as the bedbug of society. You wouldn’t tell a friend who’s got bedbugs to ignore it and maybe the little critters will move on to another house. Instead you’d most likely help them figure out how to eradicate the problem. Ignoring the fact racism exists doesn’t help anyone except those who benefit from Whiteness and this is running on the assumption that ignoring is possible because it’s pretty hard to ignore when laws are passed in the name of bigotry, when you’re not picked for jobs because they’d prefer a White person instead, when people treat you differently (read: worse) because of your skin. And don’t bother trying to tell me or any minority what your perfect world is if our identities have to be erased in favor for the idea of Whiteness in that world. If that’s the case, it’s not perfect, it’s a hellhole. White-centered utopic thinking is a terrible idea. Occupy Wall St. were really big offenders of this thinking and they wondered aloud why minorities weren’t rushing to their sides, all the while pushing ideas that mainly were built on the spectrum of Whiteness, regardless of intersection.

Getting back to center, this girl wasn’t Pagan as far as I know but this isn’t a very far jump from how mainstream Paganism thinks, especially since the face and culture of modern Paganism is fairly White. I’ve heard the same in Pagan circles: “just forget about it”, “racism is dead”, “I was/am oppressed too because I’m [Irish/Woman/Pagan/Gay]”, the gambit. Firstly, because we gotta get this out of the way: ignoring intersections doesn’t help you out. You may be gay but you’re still White and gay. The intersection of Black and gay is still more tumultuous because of the twofold combination of racism and homophobia. The intersection between Black and Pagan and female is also just as tumultuous because of the threefold combination of racism, sexism and religious bigotry. As said prior, if minorities bringing up racism makes you feel bad, the fault doesn’t lie with the minority for being really honest with how their life is, the fault is with the society thinking that the minority is a liar and thus continue performing acts of racism, be it subtle or overt.

Despite the progressive looking lip service, mainstream Paganism tends to fight against acknowledgements of racism in the community and like to sweep non-beneficial parts of history under the rug. Try to hijack Voudon for all its rootwork? Oh sure. Thieve from Native American culture for cleansing techniques? Go right ahead. Ransack Eastern beliefs for meditation methods and ways of thinking? O hai, y not? Bring up slavery and colonialism? Dude! Why so harsh? It’s really problematic because it’s erasure, which is part of Whitewashing. The original culture does not benefit from the promotion of these now horribly-divorced parts of their culture. If anything, they’re continually degraded and treated like they’ve never created a thing or that thing wasn’t worth anything until White culture got ahold of it.

All in all, it’s important that history is not revamped to be more White-centric, and thus erasing the experience of everyone else. It helps no one when my culture’s history is ignored because it jars White culture’s depiction of it. It’s more important to see the whole picture instead of the more privilege-friendly snapshots. Erasing identities doesn’t solve racism. Ignoring past and current crimes against humanity doesn’t solve racism. Performing micro-aggressions and micro-invalidations doesn’t solve racism. Opting for a more White-centric perspective definitely doesn’t solve racism (if anything, it continues it). Don’t like the fact that people constantly bring up marginalization when the past is brought up? Deal with it because it happens and the effects are still strongly felt today.

And that’s the first column for today. Coming up in the next few hours: The Arts!: Samhain Edition

Remember, I’m still accepting entries for Samhain Pickers Giveaway. The prize is a divination reading from me and only three winners are chosen at total random.

Here’s how you submit an entry:

Send in an email to thisblackwitch[at]Hotmail.com with “Samhain Pickers” in the subject line. In the message of the email, please write:

– Name

– Email

– Type of Divination (Cartomancy, Tarot, Natal Chart, Dream Interpretation)

Also, next week is Ask Black Witch so if you have any questions, send them in! Good questions are appreciated, bad questions are eviscerated!

* We are. Crack open a history book if you don’t believe me.

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Getting Under My Skin

Filed under: Pagan Life, Race — Leave a comment
August 16, 2013

Now, I always like reading and responding to readers. Makes me feel like there is dialogue and that I’m accessible. However, do not come here like this:

Dislike

Wanna get me viper fast? Come in here promoting something so offensive to my race and skin color. I don’t stand for racism so I definitely don’t care for its little brat sibling, colorism/shadism, and can’t stand those who promote it. I don’t care if this is spam or not, I don’t like it.

I’m Black, been Black, gonna be Black and forever gonna stay Black. I’m not gonna act like my skin tone and my racial make-up is the worst part of me because it is not. But my reciprocal vindictiveness is and this stuff definitely brings those traits out in full effect. Don’t like it? Drink skin lightener.

Skin lightener is disgusting and the mindset that greenlights it is highly disturbed. It’s internalized racism because you are actively believing the bullsh*t our Eurocentric culture pushes to the point you’re willing to put caustic chemicals on your skin to achieve it as if it’s gonna buy you a ticket out of the woes of the Negro. It won’t and never will.

Lemm’ tell you a story ’bout a Black girl I met who was ashamed to be Black. She wasn’t light enough to pass but definitely enough to get confused for another ethnicity like Greek by folks who are too dumb to tell the difference. She just didn’t like who she was because she didn’t see positive Black representations and already felt to be a fish out of water because she didn’t like activities and behaviors that are constantly aligned with “Blackness”. If anything, she liked Eastern alternative culture and was a J-Fashion enthusiast. She just wanted to be someone else and preferably not Black because she felt her Blackness, from her features to what she saw in her community, was holding her back. If anything, she wanted to be White because she believed the ads on tv, in the magazines, in the movies, on the internet, that if she was White, she would be easier loved, easier desired, clothes would fit her better, her whole life would be better. She internalized the subtle “White is Right” thinking that so pervades our culture from literature to moving media to the digital world.

I never was angry at her for thinking the way she did, she was a nice person. She wouldn’t hate on others for being Black or being darker, she just wanted to be White because she felt she couldn’t be pretty otherwise. If anything, I tried to help her figure out that being Black doesn’t mean you are ugly or stupid or have to like crappy hip hop (or hip hop at all, for that matter). She told me about how people in alternative fashions would pass over her because of her skin, she wouldn’t be respected as much as her White counterparts and that she would be so much better off if she was lighter, not Black, skinner, all these things that she just internalized. She told me a White lolita had thrown coffee on her dress because of her weight and race. She told me about how she just wanted life to be easier because being Black was weighing heavy on her self-esteem.

See, even though the girl didn’t irritate me, the thinking sure did because it is really common for Black kids in alternative culture. I never felt like being White was going to make my life better (Glad too, I like the fact I don’t peel like an onion when exposed to sunlight for longer than an hour), but I do understand the aching feeling of displacement from Black culture and the idea of Blackness. Commonly, Black kids who break the mold start to feel like they’re the broken rejects of their culture because they didn’t follow along the usual narrative somehow. They don’t fit in with the alternative kids always because they’re Black and they don’t fit in with the other Black kids because they’re alternative. This is how the girl I knew felt, but with the added idea that if she were White, people would like her more and respect her more. That’s not good. At all.

That’s why I don’t like people like the commenter up there because they capitalize on such a painful and unhealthy thinking. And then on top of that, they come to a site that is painfully pro-Blackness trying to peddle that crap. What? Did they expect I would just think, “Eh, that’s just who they are. They simply asked a harmless name even though their website is problematic”? Yah, no. That earns nothing but disrespect from me and rightfully so. If their site was about the physical and psychological dangers of skin lightening, I’d be fine because we could definitely use sites like that around. It’s absolutely disrespectful to me that someone would think I would be okay with it. I’m not going to see it as someone’s different life choice. I’m not going to respect it as a “different folks, different strokes” kind of thing. It is just trying to aspire to Whiteness, regardless of whether that is done for intrinsic or extrinsic reasons.

It took me a long time, as well as with the help of other Black lolitas, for this girl to actually be okay with being Black and learn that there’s nothing wrong with being Black and different from the crowd, it doesn’t affect your Blackness. She’s actually starting to like herself. She not walking about letting out her inner Janelle Monae but she’s getting there. Getting a little more confident everyday. Feeling more comfortable with who she is everyday. She is getting better and her life seems to be positively improving slowly but surely. That’s what being comfortable with who you are gets. She wasn’t going to find that kind of happiness nor get better at taking care of herself by trying to be something that she’ll never be nor should strive to be. I made sure she tried to understand that being Black is not the worst part of who she was and that anyone who tried to make her think that way was not a friend of hers nor worthy of respecting. I also explained to her the history, psychology and sociology of what she was feeling so she didn’t feel terrible but just understood how she and others got that way because it’s important for her to understand the mechanics of the society she was participating in and how those bad feelings occurred.

So, please, do not come to my website pushing that carcinogenic crap and asking me for tips on how to improve your site. There’s no reason for me to treat you with an iota of respect nor civility. If you were just about any other subject on the ‘net, you would have fared so much better than right now. Just keep your wonders of unnecessary skin scorching treatment to yourself, that’s what you should do.

Alright. Next week is The Arts!

– The Roper
– Electronic Purgatory
– Children

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White Opinions Need Not Apply

Filed under: Pagan Life, Race — Leave a comment
July 7, 2013

A while ago, I was on the Black Witch Tumblr and saw a reblog from another Black blog about how the term “PoC” (Person of Color) can be really annoying sometimes and I jumped in and added that I agree because PoC can erase individual racial identification whereas “White” is still a standalone. Normal day on the BW Tumblr, right? That’s until the White Opinions started rolling in.

hey man i saw your post about how being called a “POC” is offensive. i’m white, so i don’t know shit about racism and can’t decide what’s offensive to you and what isn’t. to compare, as a gay woman, i find this new term “queer” (used to describe everyone on the LGBT spectrum) offensive, as do many others. do many people share the same thoughts on the term “POC”?

– chihiroschurros

Hi, I happened across your blog on accident and I have to say that your analysis of the term POC is pretty damn interesting. Honestly, I’ve always had an issue with that term. Hell, I’m a white male and every time I or someone else used it it always made my skin crawl and I had no idea why. Now I do. I know for certain that if I wasn’t white, I sure as hell wouldn’t want to be referred to as that, and I’m sorry that people have used that to refer to you. It’s actually slightly dehumanizing.

– elegyforafez

See what I have to deal with?

I responded to them both in a super snarky way because, eh, it’s usually tough to explain to Whites how racism effects minorities because they go (conveniently) temporarily stupid and unknowing about the existence of Google so might as well express my opinion fully, even if they don’t get it. That and I wanted to nip any future White opinions before they could come in because it isn’t uncommon for White folks to latch on like a bedbug to the one minority that will put up with their bullsh*t. Especially in minorities-only discussions such as the term of PoC.

I responded to chihiroschurros with this response (wouldn’t be surprised if she thought you couldn’t be gay and not White at the same time) and to elegyforafez with this really scathing response because hey, White folks have a difficult time understanding the comment “Not your discussion, be quiet. And you’re dead wrong anyways, thus why you should be quiet,” I figure that tone and snark would help them understand that hey, maybe they should have been quiet in the first place and kept their White Opinions to themselves.

Oh and one responded to me with this

Oh. Well. Sorry to offend you.

– elegyforafez

What a dingbat. Here was my response. He thought I was offended? Nah. I wasn’t offended, he’s just really annoying with throwing in his opinion – actually assumed he had a place to present one – and if I wasn’t viper, he was probably going to go “hurrrrrr durrrrrrr, I didn’t get any of that. Duuurrrr” like White folks generally do when faced with explanations of why what they said/thought/did was incorrect.

Now for folks who are going, “but they’re just opinions, how is it White opinions? You’re categorizing by race too!” Yeah, the categorizing is on purpose, think of it like the term “mansplaining”, where a guy tries to explain a simple concept but heavily injected with sexism. “White Opinions” are intruding opinions in a subject that generally concerns and primarily affects minorities and White people who express their opinion automatically assume it is the highest opinion or the most authoritative because, well, they’re White. They’re a little too used to their privilege and think that since they’re speaking to minorities, they have the highest word.

It is very important for everyone to understand that in group conversations about race, religion or whatever, if you’re the one with the privilege, it is important not to invade that space and try to dominate the conversation or even inject an opinion that’s not necessary. A White person didn’t have to express how they felt about the term PoC because 1) it’s not their place to determine what we should be called and 2) we minorities already know how Whites feel about using terminology to describe someone’s race and/or ethnicity and given their track record, we really don’t want to hear any more of their thoughts and ideas. Notice in both Asks, the person pretty much implied “Oh my god, I think PoC is degrading, too!” which is really insulting because it tells me that they think PoC is insulting but I bet if the word us Black tumblrs was talking about was the N-word, they would either be silent or go “Hey, a word is a word! People should be able to use that word [especially us White folks because we really want to call you that, oh man, ur so mean. Weeeeeeeh, you’re infringing on my first amendment rights by not allowing me to freely use hate speech, this isn’t what our forefathers died for].” Let’s you know right there that they have a problem with a term that actually has “person/people” built into the name but if it is a dehumanizing term, oh go nuts.

It’s like if there was a Christian in a Pagan safe space, just trying to “correct” people left and right. Telling us, “Oh no, that’s a sin in the eyes of the Lord” or “Your god doesn’t exist so you don’t have to worry about that” or “I don’t think I have privilege at all, I’m just saying, I don’t think that you should take Creationism out of schools because that would lead to more school shootings! Prayer works – just to Jesus though, none of that devil worshipping you do. That causes them.” Notice the Christian is being remarkably rude because they’re completely disregarding a space that isn’t for them and instead of bowing out, they’re just establishing their religious privilege and down talking everyone else. Think this doesn’t happen? It happens all the time, even on national stages, just let a Black group try to talk about racism and prejudice in America and watch the White privilege start flying in through stereotyping, down-talking or trying to have the domineering opinion in an arena they have no business being in.

Now, how does one deal with encroaching White Opinions?

Here are your options:

A) Ignore them

B) Remind them that this is not their convo and you are not their cultural ambassador

C) Remind and ignore

This is really good because let’s face it, you really don’t want to keep arguing with these people forever because they’re going to use every tactic in the book to make you say that they are right or somehow twist your answer into making it appear that you’re proving them right. Nothing is wrong with saying, “This is my position on the situation and after that, we’re done.” No minority has to be a cultural ambassador to White folks. Ever. Google exists for a reason.

Or you can play racism bingo

racism bingo

Let’s see what I hit:

– “Just a coincidence that it looks like racism”

– “Didn’t Mean It That Way”

– Free Space for “White Opinions SMASH!” (I like using my free spaces early)

– “Only saying what people really think”

Remember folks, if you have privilege in that area (racial, gender, religious, cultural, etc), it’s best to just shut up and listen or strongly risk getting snipped at.

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White Out: If You Can’t See it, it’s Not a Success!

Filed under: Pagan Life, Race — 9 Comments
February 9, 2013

Storytime! So one day I was at my local metaphysical shop and I saw a goddess statue for sale among many on the wall behind the register and mentioned, “Hey, that’s a nice Brigid you have.” It had a white dress on, pale skin, flowing hair, I figured it was a Celtic goddess. Then the shop assistant, who I have known for years, snorted a laughter and said, “That’s Yemaya.”

What?

I immediately responded, “You lyin’, she’s White,” and as solid proof, she took down the figurine and there it was beneath the pale feet was “Yemaya” stamped on the name plate.

Lemme throw up a picture here so y’all can see what I saw, sans the nameplate:

Yep, apparently she's the only African Goddess with consistent sunburn

Yep, apparently she’s the only African Goddess with consistent sunburn

The shop assistant was just as baffled as me, “I don’t know why we have it, Yemaya is not White, she looks like she was dropped in bleach.” I told her, “Yemaya is whitewashed, why is she so light? Y’all should just chip out the ‘Yemaya’, chisel in a ‘Ceres’ or something and leave it there. Does anyone buy this? Has anyone noticed?”

“Nope, our supplier sent it to us and no one has noticed because her name plate is so small at a distance. I don’t know why we have her, the boss thought it would be fine, we do have Latin customers,” the shop assistant tried to reason through muffled laughter because the boss was in the back and the boss has had some testy problems with the community over race. In our hands was one of them.

“Nah, she could make Beyonce look like Wesley Snipes, y’all may have some Latin customers but apparently none with identity issues so strong this figurine is gonna make it off the wall. Would Yemaya even come if someone summoned her using this? If I were Her, I would stare at the statue and the witch asking for me and go, ‘Newp, whatever your problem is, it’s not as big as mine with that powder light statue. You’re on your own, laters,’” I couldn’t help but to joke.

Many laughs were had because of how ridiculously light this statue was. It reminded me of when I was at a now-defunct metaphysical shop out in the boonies and they had an Isis with a ski-slope nose and light enough to pass – nah, she was lighter than light enough to never be tested in the first place. I knew it was a White owned metaphysical shop with a clearly White consumer base there because I was the only one geeking on the racefail. All the Isis statues I have ever seen for the most part were Black. Black and very beautiful. A White Isis? Uh no. D’accord, this had made some folks at the meta shop uneasy because they knew I was right bringing up the inaccuracy but c’mon, if you’re gonna have deities from Africa, let them be from Africa, not Europe. Isis didn’t need a nose job and some skin lightener.

See, that’s things I don’t like, especially in Paganism. Do not whitewash anything, do not perform cultural swagger jacking of any type. It’s disrespectful beyond belief and if called out on it, do not cover it up. That’s like me stealing someone’s watch and when asked, “Is that my watch?” I respond, “Nah, man, I’ve always had this. Gift from my best friend, dude,” even when it’s clear the watch has a “Love, from mom and dad” inscribed on the side. Thieving is wrong, no matter what.

The part that kills me, though? Is when people try to make up for it with a million and ten excuses. This did not happen at my local meta shop clearly but definitely did at the now-defunct one. The main bullsh*t excuse? “Isis comes in all forms. Even Jesus has been portrayed as Black.” That makes me wanna strike with the fury of the Furies. Wanna know why Jesus was portrayed Black (even tho that’s not entirely accurate either because Middle Eastern setting)? Because Jesus definitely was not vanilla White with L’Oreal straight, flowing hair and a perfect goatee. And Jesus only looks that way thanks to an Italian painter that didn’t want to do his research.

Look, Paganism is really, really diverse. Diverse background, faiths, myths, the whole kit and kaboodle. I don’t want that diversity to become All White Everything and anybody who tries to justify that makes me wanna turn their eyes All Black Everything.

It isn’t rocket science to keep things as they are, and if the Pagan doesn’t want to come out as racist, welp, they might as well. Racism can affect anyone but when it comes to White Pagans, they have an affliction which has dated back centuries, even before the existence of Paganism as we know it now. Don’t try to cover it up, just say, “I just want to rob your culture. I like it but I don’t like you, the end.” It would move things along a lot quicker. I learned a variety of culture growing up and also in Paganism and I never tried to turn everything I touched Black because that would be inaccurate of culture. Though, I’m sure if I did, White Pagans would crap a brick because they may be okay with heavy applications of White-Out, they’re pissed to see anything colored in. It’s not hard to include minorities for anything, I can ensure you. Y’know, as long as you’re not racist or do racist things, be it overt or micro-aggressive.

Thing is, Paganism isn’t all White. It’s not the White Pride club, that would be the Klan, Tea Party and GOP you’re thinking of. Africa is the home of the first human, China is the home of the longest standing civilization, how on earth does everyone wind up looking like they came from Milian? Even Gardiner, who created Wicca, took things from his (orientalized) Egyptian learning and from the Hindus as well (don’t that 3x thing sound a lot like karma? And how about reincarnation?) It may have a lot of European parts in it but check closer, there are few “Product of India/China/Egypt/native America” stickers on there. Paganism, again for the slow ones in the back, is not and never was White. Anyone who thinks that is a bigoted idiot, simple as that. It doesn’t matter how ones dresses it, they are exactly that. They are bigoted because they refuse to acknowledge that the world is not White. If anything, the world is mostly other than White so it is rude to ignore that. They are an idiot because clearly they do not know about Paganism from the Paleolithic era to now and very understudied in all the cultures of the world which are part of Paganism and a much bigger part at that. Again, for the really slow ones anywhere, Paganism is not a White Pride club, join the Klan for that or whatever White supremacy hate group is in your area.

If anything, I’m for accuracy and if we’re gonna be inaccurate, let’s color everything in. I want to be reflected and I will. Otherwise, there is hell to pay. I actually remembered some random dude made a dvd about “realistic Pagans” from “diverse backgrounds” and tried to tell me about so I could promote it here on BW. Ha, no. Unless he was talking hair color, there was no diversity, it was a bunch of White kids convening in the woods. I told the dude exactly that and plus some. When he has an 80-100% minority cast, then we can talk. Until then, go bother someone else or go back to the drawing board. I don’t prefer to support any Pagan ventures that won’t reflect me at all. If they feel folks that look like me should be absent from their works, then they should be absent from mine too. And it has to be an honest effort, not a “We have a token! Happy now?” Shivian of Oh My Gods! did that, thoroughly was not appreciated because the character was a clear afterthought. I liked the comics but he should have spent more brain cells on that choice.

What to leave with this? That there’s a world out there and it doesn’t look like how folks depict it on the tv, the movies or even the news. Please acknowledge it or find a new religion. Or just be Atheist and keep the whitewashing out of religion as a whole.

Now, that’s done. The BWshoppe has been really poppin! The marimos are my biggest sellers, I can barely keep them in stock with all the demands. W00t! I was going to introduce a new marimo, a lux marimo but I’mma have to save that for later for I have hit some snags. Nothing bad but definitely don’t want to jump the gun on anything.

Next week on The Arts! is what was what it should have been last month before I fell sick:

– Red Oak Wands/ Merlin’s Realm
– Smooth E
– Nikki Lynette
– What Are You Doing Here? (Laina Dawes) Black Women in Heavy Metal

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So Real, It’s Fake: Afriboos and Science

Filed under: Pagan Life, Race — 2 Comments
January 11, 2013

Just in! Black Witch is officially available on the Kindle for $0.99! First 14 days are free so check it out!

I was around close to downtown and looked at some of the books in the local shops and stalls. Some of these books are the predictable Afriboo* types that talk about science and politics and social structures but I picked up this one because the cover was that comedic.

bs1

I mean, look at that cover, doesn’t it scream “All my facts are going to be more slanted than Fox News on President Obama”? You have the obvious Afriboo name, even with an actual Afrika as the last name. Then there’s the super poor, super grainy molecular structure picture. This is already the first red flag – not necessarily the poor quality picture but the joke structure they got up there. Looking at the University of Virginia’s chemistry page, it explains that the exact structure of melanin is quite elusive. And here’s a Wikipedia page that talks more in depth about melanin, even throwing out a few actual structures since there are different types of melanin.Yeah, you’ve probably noticed that the structure doesn’t look as complex and “scientific-y” as what this book has. I guess I should be pleased that the dude didn’t figure out how to craft this into an ankh somehow. Y’know, because the first Blacks are from Kenya/the African Equator Egypt. And those daring bulletpoints! You would think that this book would be the size of a tome if it were going to go into all of these intriguing facts instead of a basic bathroom reader. What, did the dude not want to intimidate the Black race with extended literacy and literature?

Then there’s the back of the book, which explains that it didn’t want to use Latin so that even the most basic simpleton could get it. But here’s the thing, Latin is well infused in English. Like the words “ridicule” (ridere), the terms patron and matron (pater/mater), frigid (frigere), fraternity/sorority (frater/soror) so on and so forth. If you wanna see more Latin injected into language, look at the Romantic** languages French, Italian and Spanish. I understand that some terms like Jaundice (which means “yellow”) can be really intimidating sounding because it’s more than just Latin terms but there’s Greek as well but they have English counterparts and can be explained because they have to since the average person is not a doctor. The book said that a lot of melanin chatter has a lot of Latin in it but that should not be the problem itself and trust and believe anyone can learn Latin. It’s the internet, just Google and learn. I learned it in high school, it’s not that difficult. This guy is just trying the lazy argument of “Oh man, they’re talkin’ a different language than us Blacks, that’s how they’re tryin’ to keep us down”. It would have been a great argument in the 1800s or so because it was a relevant argument but nowadays, there is the internet. And calling Latin an “awkward, primitive” language – don’t he sound an awful lot like White folks who say the same about Black slang and Black languages as a whole?

The table of contents, they smell of Afriboo goodness and material. Pseudo-scientific terminology? Check. African-esque font? Ka-chek. Lack of bibliography? Check. Mentioning “melanin” so many times you’d think the whole book would say “Melanin. Melanin melanin mel. Mel melanin melanin Black melanin. Melanin” and nothing else? Check. Possible nonsense use of metaphysical concepts such as chakras and zodiacs (Most likely tropical zodiac, which is pretty Western)? Check and mate. You can almost hear the internalized racism and backward spewing that’s about to happen humming. I could already bet five bucks this dude was gonna say something a)homophobic b) racist, even against Blacks and especially anything outside the Black/White spectrum c) sexist/misogynistic.

And then, there was the anatomy section.

The anatomy section what I randomly found myself on when I first flipped through the book and I was laughing. Like, mad rollin.

This section is so poorly done I really am shocked anyone takes it seriously. Here came some of the misogyny: The dude couldn’t name the proper parts of a woman’s genitalia. Like, everything was “vagina” something.

bs ss2

Black Race, left; White Race, right

“Vagina Lips”? Really? 27 flippin years as a supposed “doctor” and you don’t even know the freaking basics? Someone did try to tell me that the dude wanted to keep it simple but this is keeping it ignorant and really not benefiting women – or anyone else – in the least. Firstly, there are two sets of lips in the genitalia (not everything is the vagina, folks. Trust me, I own a set) and that is the labia minora and the labia majora. Oh noes! LATIN. What does this secret Latin talk mean?! Easy, labia majora is “big lips” and labia minora is “little lips” and they refer to the outer and inner lips of the vulva, which is the female outer genital region. And let’s get into the comparison between White and Blacks (and, of course, ignore everyone else in the world because according to this book: eh, screw ‘em). Apparently Black women are supposed to be tighter (lololololo, virgin reference), have something like a lengthened flora lifespan. White chicks are supposed to be “smaller”, that’s it. Is. He. Serious? This is medicinal science? More like a travesty to it. I’ve read longer, better written pieces on the labia/vulva on Tumblr. Not all Black women are built the same down there. Yes, there are trends related to racial physical  structure but this surely isn’t it. And notice that the whole “tightness” thing doesn’t really have anything to do with women in and of themselves but what a woman’s body can do for a guy because why on earth would the average woman care if they have vacuum seal or not since it has nothing to do with the body besides intercourse? (And with a dude, of course, gay folks don’t exist!) This is stupid, misogynistic and very short sighted. And about the whole “flora” thing, that already has super wavy logic because I don’t think the Black woman labia naturally keeps microorganisms better because that sounds like illnesses such as yeast infection and such are bound to happen rampantly because the vagina apparently can’t flush itself out with natural discharge. Yeah. Stupid logic. Unless flora is a pseudonym for “semen”, lolz. With how wack this doc is, I wouldn’t put it past him. Not when he seems to lack understanding of the female human body when it is not in relation to a man.

“Vaginal shaft” is where a red flag parade should be in full stomp and speed right now. Wanna know the legit name for the vaginal shaft? Vagina. This is the vagina, folks. Really. Freakin. Basic. It is not a vaginal shaft, it is the vagina, in and of itself. No one has to be a doctor to know that fact, you should know that just from staying awake in Health or Biology in high school. And again with the whole “relation to a man thing”! The Black woman vagina is supposed to be longer and allow increased muscular activity? Seriously? Basically, “this only exists for the peen of the Black man and nuttin’ else!” Yeah, that’s not science, that nonsense. And it’s rude too because the vagina doesn’t exists strictly so a guy as something to stick his penis in (note that the vagina, uterus and the rest of the baby making parts don’t disappear in lesbians), if there is going to be scientific, medical discussion about genitalia, the talk has to be about that organ exclusively, not how it can serve others. This guy doesn’t see women as people, does he?

The “penis” part is funny because of some of the same reason as the previous two, it’s scientifically inaccurate and more sex-based than anything. Not every Black dude has a dong that could parallel the Sears Tower, it’s a racist factoid that was created by White culture waaaaaaaaaay back when some centuries ago to dehumanize Black folks (“Because if you make Blacks more animal-like, then slavery and racism doesn’t look that bad!” is how they saw it) and this was one of the ways, by exaggerating features. Thanks for continuing the work of White socio-cultural prejudice, doc! And the penis exists for more than just being a jizz launcher but I guess in the eyes of this doc, that doesn’t really matter much.

bs ss3

The stemoclavicular muscle? Firstly, that’s a joint. There’s a sternohyoid muscle and a stemoclavicular joint. They’re in the same regions (which is pretty apparent in their names) and hey, I thought this dude said that he was gonna stay away from big and difficult words? And dude, wtf? You compared Black people to monkeys. Let this marinate for a second, folks. He said “monkey”. Not in the evolution-man-came-from-monkeys, way but in the Black-people-are-like-monkeys way. He didn’t take the scientific route but the racist route. Monkeys. Are you kidding me? Dude. No.

I could spend all day on this section – seriously, check out the “sacral spot” and “breath” – but we gotta move on, this whole book’s crappy nature has to be exposed in all its Afriboo glory.

Here comes the fake psychology! Firstly, it’s sociological trends I think this dude is trying to note as psychology has more to do with the individual and sociology has more to do with the collective/crowd. Duh.

Throughout this whole thing, it seems the quack is trying to paint Whites as this unfeeling animal that is not capable of humanity or thought. Now, though there are many passages in the pages of history that could definitely loan itself to those ideas about the race (chattel slavery, institutionalized racism, colorism, atom bombing, church bombings, colonialism, lynchings, imperialism, Vietnam War, Laos, Iraq, South Africa/apartheid, stealing land from the indigenous and the treatment of the indigenous thereafter, Civil Rights movement, etc etc etc), science is still supposed to be objective. Racialized science is a bad idea, no matter whose side it’s defending. And the stuff for Blacks in this section is absolutely pathetic and completely erroneous and/or unscientific.

bs ss4

Is this quack serious? Blacks are monotheistic? You’re joking, right? There are hundreds, if not thousands of tribes in Africa (because, remember, it’s a continent) and I can very much assure you that they were polytheistic as all get out. Polytheism stems from animism and animism was pretty much one of the first metaphysical concepts of human as they were trying to figure out this world that surrounds them through personification. And I’m pretty freakin sure that when this guy says “monotheistic”, it’s code for “Abrahamic”. As in, Blacks are supposed to be naturally Christian or Muslim (remember, there’s that weird anti-Semitic thing about Judaism Afriboos have so that’s not always counted). Which is, frankly, Grade-A, USDA approved, utter bullsh*t. It’s not a “European” concept to believe in many gods, especially since Europe as we all know it came later than Africa and Asia, which houses some of the very first civilizations. Did he buy his degree from the internet?

Then there’s the part that paints the Black race with the broadest brush evar: Maat. Everything is all about Maat, which participates in the usual hyper focus of Egypt and the culture of the land there. Kemet is nifty but it sure ain’t all there is to Africa, trust. And not all Blacks, since we don’t move in lockstep and there’s no All Black Everything convention to decide how to move in lockstep, are going to buy the whole Maat/Kemet thing for themselves. I don’t practice strictly African traditions and neither does everyone else who is Black and Pagan. We acknowledge it because it does deserve that and no one should attempt to scribble away its validity but not every Black person is going to adhere to it because not every Black person is exactly the same. And this so-called “doc” should stop trying to use Maat as an excuse for everything from civility to science to sex (especially sex, this guy really should never hop on that subject ever again). It doesn’t look cool when the Christians do it with Jesus, it doesn’t look any better with Maat.

Just like the anatomy section, the psych section is filled with failure. Like, all fail.

And ‘ey yo, look! We have our own sleep pattern!

bs ss5

I didn’t know our sleeping was so…so…cosmic. I thought I snooze the same way my non-Black friends do. I mean, yeah there’s things like lucid dreaming, dream walking and astral projection, those are totally legit and fine. But those happenings are not race exclusive, many cultures have some sort of manifestation for these events, these instances are human experiences, they’re worldwide. It’s not a Black Only event is what I’m trying to say and not every Negro has this amazing experience as described. We collect our z’s the same way as everyone else does.

Oh, hey, hijacking other cultures holistic methods! Discussing chakras and the zodiac? Those two didn’t start in Africa. That’s more Middle East/Western concepts. So much for staying Blacker than Black. And then, create all this misinformation that is full of crap and even goes as far as denigrating the races/culture these concepts came from. Totes rad, man. Totes rad.

This book, as you can see for yourself, is complete rubbish. It’s definitely a laugh but it’s also concerning when noticing that folks take this literary crap bucket seriously. It’s bigoted, misogynistic, filled with erroneous facts, actually racist against Blacks, just worthless as anything potentially intellectual. It’s an insult to those who actually studies and preserves African culture and Africana diaspora culture only to be compared against completely written up trash created by someone who calls himself a doctor but has the term “fraud” next to their name commonly in Google searches. Just skimming this book (like I’d actually read this from cover to cover, please) and picking out random sections, I can see where the accusations are coming from.

Folks, just stay away from Afriboo books, they’re bad for your intellect and we Blacks deserve way more than this waste of paper and binding. No wonder these folks are so easily laughed out of lauded institutions and circles, not even considered a slight threat.

Next week is The Arts! Let’s see who is gonna get featured

– Red Oak Wands/ Merlin’s Realm
– Smooth E
– Nikki Lynette
– What Are You Doing Here? (Laina Dawes) Black Women in Heavy Metal

After that is Ask Black Witch so send in your questions! Good questions are appreciated, bad questions are eviscerated. Pow!

*Afriboo: A term coined here on Black Witch to describe those who have a sharply biased infatuation with the continent Africa in the same manner weaboos do for Japan. Read the initial post here: Blacked Out Blind

** Romantic languages mean they stem from Latin, which was spoken in Roman culture, hence the term “Romantic languages”

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Medicine and Potions

Filed under: Race, Spells & Potions — 2 Comments
December 14, 2012

What I have noticed as a constant in the Black Pagan community is a strong favor towards homeopathy over modern medicine such as vaccines. Always they would talk about their illnesses and ask what herbs or stones to get, what deities to pray to and such. It’s really troubling when they want to use this for their children’s primary care as well. I find that to be intensely problematic.

To have absolute distrust of vaccines is like raising a fuss over the water having fluoride in it, it’s very alarmist. It does more harm than good to opt out of “childhood vaccines” (e.g. Mumps, measles, polio, etc). Now, I personally have my reservations with shots such as flu and tetanus for my own reasons but it is not a bad idea overall to get the childhood vaccines because they prevent extremely fatal and preventable illnesses such as the whooping cough. It is okay to use potions and other forms homeopathy  but to rely on them totally while having incredible distrust of its more modern form, medicine, can still cause major health problems. I make potions myself to help when I get sick but I still go to a doctor when things get bad.

While it is a little foolish to be super skeptic of all vaccines, it is perfectly fine to be concerned about institutionalized racism in medicine because there is a long, very steady streak in that reaches into modern times such as now. Given that the face of medicine and science in the West is White, that can definitely cause suspicions to any minority that is concerned about their health because any minority that is aware of their history knows, usually when it comes to something vital, racism can really cause quite a body count through stereotyping, misinformation and forcing destructive privilege. When racism clearly will stop otherwise intelligent doctors and scientists from accepting perfectly good doctors and scientists from even entering medical schools or to simply help people thanks to their extremely illogical, unbelievably shortsighted and incredibly irrational ideas of those who can’t pass the paper bag test, it makes perfect sense to distrust that same system when it asks you to give them your arm so they can inject something into it.

History is riiiiiiiiiiife with medicine not boding well if you’re not White. Tuskegee, anyone? How about Eugenics? Even Bayer tested on victims of the Holocaust (and before someone screeches, “They were White! Racism affects us too!” there were more than Whites being detained. There were Blacks and Asians too, please get your facts straight).  There are countless, countless documents about racism in medicine and immunization – sadly science won’t fit in the scope of this post but, man, is there a lot of bigotry there too – that warps how minorities look at medicine and the system that provides it. Granted, in some of the writings I link to, the bigotry is pretty well outlined: “At least three patient factors affect ethnic and racial disparities in immunization rates: patient preferences, distrust of ‘the system,’ and lack of knowledge. For example, certain racial or ethnic groups may be more likely to call on religious or lay healers or to seek informal help through social networks rather than seeking care from physicians. Further, members of racial/ethnic minority groups often express a preference for providers from their own background, and such providers may not be available. Only 9%of physicians and 12.3% of nurses are members of a racial or ethnic minority group.” (p. 657, Larson) It already reeks a little of “They’re so irrational to be trusting these non-sciencey people we never vetted because of some silly conspiracy theory of ‘the system’ like we’re planning this.” How rude. At least the lay healers and social networks are less racist than the folks wearing lab coats on average. Unless you’re White, not sharing the same opinions as George Zimmerman is kinda a big deal because that creates the difference between being a sick person and a dead person. And, remember, this is a document that is actually talking about racism in medicine, thus recognizing it, and they’re still applying prejudice on the sly. That’s how pervasive that problematic (and potentially deadly) thinking is.

‘Ey, before I get any deeper, maybe we should familiarize ourselves with how vaccines are made and how they work. So here’s How Are Vaccines Made and there’s even a fun, interactive game called History of Vaccine which will take you through the times about health, sickness and preventative care from the 1600s to now.

Vaccines, in and of themselves, are not bad. To be honest, it’s better to be vaccinated overall because it reduces the chances of infection and fatal illnesses that are very preventable. There’s a reason why Americans do not have severe outbreaks of measles or polio. Right now, there is work on the HIV/AIDS virus and last I checked there has been amazing strides towards the cure and vaccine. Yes, there is the argument of mandatory vaccines and autism but even that has been proven not to be connected. In their purest form, vaccines are to be just that, a serum to prevent illness.

When it comes to medicine, potions are the starting point of it all. Whether science likes it or not, it has a lot of starts in witchcraft and medicine is included. What used to be regarded as folk herbs and folk medicine has been studied, bottled up and distributed in the form of pills, shots and syrups. There are various types of potions such as teas, tinctures, poultices and wraps. Some that I use are to help my throat when it’s sore, when my muscles are achy/inflamed/swollen, cramps, etc etc. I use potion work with modern medicine so I reduce visits to the doctor and stay healthy. I’m a little lucky that I have so many doctors and health professionals in my family (pretty much all my aunts and both of my grandmothers) so medicine knowledge trickles down but it’s information anyone who pretty much stayed awake in biology or biochem should know since medicine is merely knowing how the body works and how different substances interact with the body.

Anyone who is thinking of getting into herbalism and potion work should pick up a few books on how the body works, botany and things of that nature because without proper knowledge, potion work can become very, very harmful. Do not relax on the idea that because it came from nature, it’s harmless. There are plenty of plants, creatures and occurrences that come from nature and the earth and are plenty dangerous. To assume Mother Nature is some kind and benevolent being clearly is not a very realistic person. Possibly a fluffy bunny that should stay very far away from potions so they don’t mistakenly kill someone.

Aside from the natural function of the body’s immune system and things that can be used to strengthen them, I don’t believe there is a potion version of the vaccine besides vaccines themselves since they use actual parts of germs and viruses and, welp, there was nothing like that back in the heyday of potion making. Potions were taking things from nature and using those to make remedies for illnesses. This doesn’t mean that making teas and tinctures are phony and useless, it means that everyone has a territory for their own. Potion work isn’t perfect and neither is modern medicine but combined, they can create a pretty healthy person.

So! Get at least your childhood vaccinations? Yes. Be aware that the instruction of medicine can be super prejudiced to the point it could kill you if you’re a minority? Yep. Are potions worthwhile to do? Sure are, just know what you’re doing. Is it smart to distrust vaccines and go with homeopathy instead? Nah, not really, get at least the basic shots and know how vaccines are made. Don’t slough off potions for modern medicine? Sure, modern medicine had to start somewhere. Don’t slough off modern medicine for potions? Please don’t, modern medicine isn’t a total cock up, just some of the people who study it and all of the institution that administers it. Is fluoride bad for you? Newp, it strengthens your teeth with the amount that is in drinking water.

Stay healthy!

Next week is The Arts! Who is being featured:

– Lupe Fiasco x KRS-One Christmas Battle
– Rolling Jubilee
– EddsWorld

After that is Ask Black Witch, the last of 2012! Send in your questions! Good questions are appreciated, bad questions are eviscerated!

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Blacked Out Blind

Filed under: Pagan Life, Race — 5 Comments
August 11, 2012

Alright. I’m Black. It’s the reason why this column/blog is called Black Witch. My ma is Black, my dad is Black (from Jamaica, actually), my nana is Black, grandpappy is Black, we’re a pretty Black family. Even my cat has black spots on her (dark-greyish? Close enough). Grandpops on my dad side was friends with Bob Marley, my grandma on my dad side knew Colin Powell when they were teens. My family on my mom side up to now pretty much took part in history via fighting in wars from WWII to the Korean War and ‘Nam to Afghanistan. I’m born on Thurgood Marshall’s birthday. I’ve gotten a Walking While Black at my college when I was leaving to go home. I’m gonna be at the Afro-Punk festival in a couple weeks, most likely fangirling horribly over Janelle Monae. As far as having a regular, Black experience goes, it’s pretty much there.

Despite all this, for overzealous Afro-centrists – we’ll call them Afriboos* – it’s never good enough. Being Black and Pagan, these folks are on par with fluffy bunnies and increase the more Black folks you have in your area. These folks are beyond the quarterback pushback from the centuries of racism that has been forced on the race and simply are All Black Everything gone all awry. They reject anything remotely White, they believe that Africa has the first human (which is true) and believe that they hence are above and beyond all races. They don’t like how racist White people can get but may feel perfectly free to practice it towards other races (they reject Whites calling them the N-word but calling Asians and Latins their respective slurs? “Eh, they’re cool with it; they never had it like us.”). Usually frothing at the mouth about conspiracies, their favorite being how the Illuminati is funding Jay-Z’s career and Nicki Minaj is possibly a confused woman wishing to be White or a symbol of all that is wrong with Black America. (If you heard the sound of a car crash, that was the logic in the previous sentence.) Or the conspiracy that the White House is trying to kill them, Obama is in on the Kill-All-Negroes plan and Blacks have had it the worst of all races, hands down, no contest. Usually, they know everything there is to know about Egypt and think if the world enforced African culture instead of Western culture, the whole world would clean up its problems from Global Warming to economic meltdown and Black people would be rich and all the problems of Black America would fade away in a flash. Perms are evil and anyone who has one clearly want to be White. Modern medicine is to be distrusted in favor of strictly natural medicine. Their opinions on homosexuality and gender equality sound like a blast from the past, circa White Americans in the 50’s. They preach that woman is the goddess and other fluffy fluff but these folks slut-shame like there is no tomorrow if the woman doesn’t dress like she came from a Kwanzaa card. These guys can be pretty militant (which isn’t always a bad thing but militancy + misinformed = problems very, very fast) and more suspicious and paranoid of Whites than is considered regular for the average Black person.** Oh! And they wanna return to the Motherland as soon as possible.

Sure.

Afriboos wouldn’t be such a trouble if they admired Africa for all that it is, how unique its 54 nations are and how those nations have provided for the world and feel rightfully outraged on how the continent has been pretty much robbed blind, carved up and still reeling from the effects of colonialism and internalized racism. Nah, like weaboos, Afriboos have a pretty narrow view of Africa fueled by all the Alex Haley, Black Panther Party memories and dime store books they could get their hands on. They have Erykah Badu’s discography memorized and it’s either Islam all day every day because that’s the “First religion of the Black people” or a full scale new-agey overload filled with feather earrings, stone jewelry, Egyptian musk and basing everything on vibrations. And if you’re natural, they come like flies, just like weaboos do to anyone who looks Japanese. Afriboos learned about Africa from either White culture-sanctioned/White washed information (National Geographic, History Channel perhaps some WorldStarHipHop) or poorly written and biased books on the Black condition from misguided Black authors who mean well but mentions poorly. And if it ain’t Black, it’s White.

The thing about Afriboos is that they police Blackness (and Black gender/heteronormativity) harder than anything. If you’re permed, you hate yourself. If you don’t know a single whole Miles Davis song, you’re misguided and don’t know your musical history. May the mercy of the God and Goddess be bestowed upon you if you listen to rock or do anything non-monolithic. Hell, you could be listening to Slash while wearing cyber goggles made by a Black crafter and reading a Black-written fan fic of Static Shock tag-teaming with Spiderman Miles Morales before lighting Deadpool up like a Christmas tree after Storm flung the assassin straight from Wakanda, and still your Black card has disappeared in the eyes of the Afriboos. If you’re gay, these folks are convinced you’ve been around White people for too long because homosexuality is “unnatural”. If you believe in Feminism/Womanism, off they will be preaching about how that’s White people stuff, that Feminism/Womanism is destructive of the “natural order of things” and in magical world of Africa, there are no problems like these except for whatever White folks cook up. If you live in the suburbs, you’re desperately ignoring your roots and don’t want to be Black at all. If you went to college, you drank the White man’s kool-aid even though the Afriboos believe that knowledge is power – but your Black self better not become an academic or scholar, that’s turning your back on the hood. The Blackness they police isn’t really Blackness but a lot of misguided stereotypes, wishful misinformation and frightened thinking.

When they do see a Black person doing something non-monolithic and aren’t frightened of it somehow like a bunny around loud noise, they treat this person like they are either the first Negro to ever do it oooooor go off into their slanted history knowledge and talk about how this Black person totally isn’t the first one to do it and the Afriboo has no idea what all the hubbub is about. An example:

Person: Gabby Douglas got two gold medals in gymnastics! Rockin! She’s really accomplished something!

Afriboos: Really? Ain’t nothing but White girls in there! Black people doing it for themselves! That’s new, ain’t ever seen that before. This gonna scare those White folks, watch them change the rules up now that she’s in. They don’t ever wanna give us a medal in anything, you know that, right? Especially not a gold medal.

or

Person: Gabby Douglas got two gold medals in gymnastics! Rockin! She’s really accomplished something!

Afriboos: Oh, please, Black people been in the Olympics! Don’t you know about how Jesse Owens made Hitler mad? We’re the first humans, of course we’re in the Olympics! Those Europeans don’t wanna give us our shine! You talkin’ about Gabby Douglas, like she the first Black girl with a gold medal. I mean, it’s something but she got Dominique Dawes to thank. And she probably had to be all around White people to know what she doin right now – why is she with a Chinese? What, she don’t think a Black coach ain’t good enough? And look at her hair, she ain’t natural! She ain’t really doing for us Africans***, who fought and died for her to be where she’s at right now. Hmph, she ain’t no different from Beyonce and her Black-hating self. How about that Usain Bolt boy? Runs like he’s straight from the Motherland. That’s us right there. He’s from Jamaica, you know they respect Africa. They Rasta. He probably Rasta, too.

Yeap. There’s nothing wrong in being proud of being Black or having your lineage trace back to Africa and there is certainly nothing wrong with acknowledging that prejudice is alive and well but it is a problem when there is a lot of misinformation fueling this info to the point it shoots blindly. The Afriboo simply fire their lasers at any and everything, pretty much like weaboos do. To weaboos, Japan is king and anything Japanese is royalty. If the Japanese don’t dominate in something, the game must’ve been rigged or people are just that racist. Weaboos have limited knowledge of the history and culture of Japan but apply it to everything and assume the rest of the world is inferior, just like Afriboos. Instead of it being a single nation, it’s a narrow, generalized knowledge of the history and culture of all of Africa, a whole, entire continent. Reality is, not Africa or the Africana diaspora move in lockstep. The cultures and history that we have is woven from our collective experiences and situations, just like the country of Japan doesn’t move in lockstep, its history and cultures became what it is today from various instances and individuals being what they are. That means there are perks but there are also flaws. Africa isn’t perfect, Japan isn’t perfect.

Then there’s the desire to return to Africa. Yeah, here’s the thing: You can’t return to something you didn’t originate from. Yes, you’re Black, you have African genes in your bloodstream, there’s no denying that. I do too and it’s spiffy. However, no Black person raised in the Western or Eastern world is going to magically assimilate into Africa. You’ll be with your race but culturally, you’ll still be an American, a European, an Asian, a South American, etc etc etc. I could not be randomly dropped off in Africa and expect to get along fine just because I’ll be somewhere where most of the folks look like me. Newp. I couldn’t even be like that in Jamaica and half my whole bloodline is from there. My aunt is from Ghana, I remember her talks of how America and Ghana are different and how being a Black person in the Western world is different from being a Black person in the African world. Those conversations were refreshed in college by my African friends and Caribbean friends every time the subject of Blackness popped up and they felt the sincere need to set the record straight because Blackness in America is not Blackness everywhere you go. And it’s usually with such insight that usually stun Afriboos into silence…or balking that the friends who chimed in must not really be from Africa/the Caribbeans/been around White people too long. Now, there’s nothing wrong with visiting there or wanting to live there, just don’t expect to magically fit in like a missing puzzle piece.

When on the Pagan lean, these guys usually are the ones in the metaphysical shops waxing poetic, sharing psuedo-intellegent quips, expressing their super limited knowledge of Black history and when it comes to the esoteric, oh man. If you show even the slightest interest in the esoteric and are remotely familiar with things like Indigo children and Eastern Star, they latch on quickly. They treat you as if they have found their lost brethren and converse with you as if you both know some grand secret that the rest of the world is sleeping on. They talk to you as if they are going to teach you something and always mention, “I’m learning so much from you,” despite the conversation is usually pretty one-sided and shallower than a teardrop on a hot plate. Most of their “facts” come from biased sources that usually are based in Christian dogma and rhetoric. If you have to quote the Bible to prove an objective fact, there is a problem. And for some odd reason, they have this thing about Jews. I really don’t fully understand it but either they herald Jews as the all-knowing race/ethnicity/religion but kinda are disgusted by them all the same. They believe that any and everything esoteric has made its way through Judaism somewhere at some point in history. The notion is best displayed when they ask, “Ask a Jewish person what year it is,” expressing that the Jews know some great secret or knowledge, hence why everyone has tried to eradicate them from the earth. Anti-Semitism, how does that work?

And let’s not forget the vibrations and earthy stuff. They seem to experience everything in the wavelengths that they feel. Instead of saying, “Oh, I feel like I can trust you,” it’s “I can sense your aura tells me you’re a good person,” or “I’m not getting bad vibrations from you, you probably have good chi,” or, “You’re a Cancer, I know I can trust you with my things.” Good lord. There’s being clairsentient and then there’s being a New Age airhead. Usually when dealing with people who actually are psychic and are fairly well-grounded mentally, they don’t talk about vibrations as if everyone is emitting some sort of shimmer but just say something along the lines of “Oh, I feel like I can trust you.” And it seems Afriboos desire so strongly to be one with the earth short of actually burying themselves in it for good, they’ll wear more stones than you’ll find in a cave, enough cowrie shells to wonder if there is a factory pumping them out and so many ankhs they probably have a bigger collection than the ancient Egyptians all together as they chatter about being Nubian kings and queens. Organic seems to be what they crave and thus think if it came from the earth, it is automatically healthy and good for humans because Mother Nature would never hurt her little children. Ever. At all. Lolz.

Like weaboos, the weird infatuation Afriboos have with sex and sexuality is a bit unsettling. Sex and sexuality is natural and totally part of nature buuuuuut hear an Afriboo tell the story, you would think that sex was this magical, mystical thing that can cure everything from a bad mood to an unsavory personality trait to a cold to cancer itself – het sex only, tho. Bring up the various sexualities in their absolute normalcy such as homosexuality, bisexuality, asexuality, demisexuality, etc etc and watch the Afriboo turn into a 12 year old as they scan their brain for something to say, either something creeptastic or about how it’s unnatural – maybe a combo of the two. The kicker is that both weaboos and Afriboos usually claim that since they love/have knowledge of a “niche” subject (Japan/Africa), they are thus more open-minded than the average person.

Now, does this mean anyone who likes Africa, natural things, has interest in the continent and the pan-African culture is an Afriboo? Not at all. Just like simply liking Japan and its culture doesn’t make you an instant weaboo or even otaku. What makes you an Afriboo, just like what makes you a weaboo, is thinking that Africa and the race that stemmed from Africa is superior to all. To learn about Africa and the diaspora through poorly designed sites or books and ignore that Africa is not a singular country but a continent with a long history and thus not 100% perfect is intensely problematic. Learn about the history, learn about what makes the culture and what it means to you as a heritage is fine and completely healthy but to act as if you could stunt on both Sistah Soldier and Assata Shakur? Don’t bother. Afriboos, like weaboos, have their heart in the right place but their minds are miles elsewhere. There’s a whole world out there, it ain’t just black and white.

*Afriboos: I’m deriving this from the term “weaboos”, which are overzealous, and usually ignorant, admirers of Japan. Instead, Afriboos are simply over-infatuated/obsessed with the continent Africa instead of a single country and bear much of the same personal qualities as weebs. Another example of derivation: Koreaboos are those who are obsessed with Korea, usually South Korea.

**Apparently, I have White readers. Hiiiiiiiii. If you’re confused about that statement, please do a quick search on racial interactions (political, economical, cultural, societal, social interactions, pick one) between Blacks and Whites in the last 300-700 years. It’s the stuff they base horror movies on. Still confused? Submit something to Ask Black Witch for clarification.

***Afriboos consider anyone Black, regardless where they were born or raised, as an African and anyone who is White, regardless where they were born or raised, as a European. If you’re half Black/half White, you’re an “I don’t know” or occasionally considered a race traitor/tragic mulatto

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