race. racism, and the hoodoo way

once again i have been accused of being a racist
i get this charge all the time and im very susceptible to it
as you can probably tell from my many protestations
of being a black voice

recently received an request to join the hooodoo way listserve
from a practitioner on the rootwork list
as i knew of her i replied that it was a small list and black

next thing i knew she has placed what i thought was
a personal reply to a sincere inquiry on her weblog
with commentary as follows

i shall remove her name because i dont want
to get involved in a catfight:

i was wandering about the internet when i found
this my email to her on her weblog in following post:

Good Morning Occulties..
So we have our answer on "The Hoodoo Way," and here it is:

hello (nameless), rickydoc here

sorry about just getting back to you
about the hoodoo way
i dont really go checking that subscriber request thing
unless im in there for some reason or the other
hope you havent been hanging there long

im familiar with your work from your posts
from the rootwork list and you are a practitioner
that i respect which is why im answering

the hoodoo way is a very small list of about 20 25 folk
invitation only and black
its primary concern is hoodoo as an instrument of cultural guidance
the evolution of hoodoo as the indigenous african american spiritual system
with a responsibility for shaping the destiny of the race
the evolution of african american culture

hope you dont feel offended or anything
i am a believer in the cross cultural future of hoodoo

but my primary concern is hoodoo as a system of
african american cultural guidance

again, i hope you are not in some way offended
i respect you and your approach to practice

be well
arf

her commentary was as follows, not to me mind you
but on her weblog:

Very interesting. I have replied back that it is understandable that I am not welcome, seeing as that I am not African-American, or even African...well, at least for several milennia back. ;) Tho, to be honest, I don't think I can trace myself back past Charlamagne...and that's iffy at best. I do know I am related to Robert the Bruce, but I suspect being the relative of a Scottish king (and most of us Scot's are, since the guy had about 18 kids,) is not the same as being Black.

Although I understand this reasoning, I am not so much in agreement. I was a practicing Druid for awhile, and did not think that others needed to be of Irish descent (as I also am,) to be Druid... Or that Druidism was a way of shaping the current life of Irish people where ever we are, and that our experience was only unique to the Irish, and that no one could learn anything by participating...you know, and Druidism is a RELIGION, and not a magic/kal platform... I just felt that others and also practitioners had to understand that Druidism is not really Celticism, and that even when I was a Celt Reconstructionalist (also a relgion,) that none of that CR was Wicca. :) Also, a system of magic/k, IMHO, is not a form of socio-cultural guidance, and also as Hoodoo is not a religion but solely a system of magic/k, nor is it specifically created only by or for African-Americans...how is it a for of socio-cultural/ethnic group guidance at all? Please refer to the post "What Platform Is this Anyway," to discover how Hoodoo is actually a big melting pot of cultural beliefs owing a good deal of thanks to African-Americans, but not even close to as much as say, Vodou (which is a RELIGION) owes to Africans.

Anyhow, label me racist if you would like, but this feels very reverse racist to me. I was very polite to Rickydoc, but all of the same... I appreciate the cold rejection letter, and do not appreciate being kept out of a group solely because of my race, especially in regards to a magic/kal platform rather than a religion...tho either is unacceptable. I guess I can't chirp on about the Black experience in America, tho, so for that reason I guess my pasty skin would disclude me. I did date someone who was an 8th Black in college, and he would be just as good as I am about talking about the Black experience (which is no good at all,) so I really don't see how the color of one's skin is so important...hmmm...I never really judged anyone on their race or color of their skin, so I guess I will never understand. Ah well...worse things have happened
.

i also get these kinds of responses when i do newsletters
that are overtly addressed to solving black issues
this is a big issue for any blackvoice trying to represent blackfolk these days
whenever blackfolk try to get together and address issues that concern us
we are accused of being reverse racists

but if i was to have let her in
it would have chilled frank conversation amongst us

it would have been just like the general hoodoo membership forums
that we are all part of

and not one concerned with hoodoos role as a cultural instrument
as the indigenous african american spiritual system

we have had all these folk who come to hoodoo
as the spiritual flavor of the month
after they have tried druidism, wicca, whatever
and then start telling us what our tradition is about
they are concerned only with folkmagic and with spells of various sorts
and anything else is frowned upon
any consideration of hoodoos traditional role of community guidance
and consideration of hoodoos traditional role of cultural guidance
and the role that we would like to have it play of destinic guidance
is of absolutely no interest to them
because they arent african american
and the hoodoo world they see is stripped of all its cultural responsibilities
they would act as if gullah jack, boukman dutty, nanny accompong, and
zumbi of palmares never existed
and that hoodoo never had a role of protecting and guiding the community
as does any spiritual system worth the time of day

they would have hoodoo be strictly a spicer newage flavor of wicca
and i object to that
i am not interested in folk magic practice
i am interested in high magic practice

this is not necessarily a racial distinction
but it occasionally becomes one

most of the spirtual travelers who light upon hoodoo
for the moment are about a 100 years out of date
in their practice of hoodoo

like folk who come to the blues and think only
old country blues are valid blues while ignoring
folk pushing the envelop like little axe or
chris thomas king

they practice archival hoodoo

and they come into the hoodoo tradition and
start making pronouncement about how hoodoo aint black no more

and make big issue of the fact that hoodoo has all these other
traditions that contribute to its thread and that makes it not african american
anymore, but african american culture has always been a bastard culture
composed of many threads, and so too is hoodoo

the primary objection here is that so many of our cultural instruments
get taken over by the majority culture and get pronounced sanitized

or the lesser more commercial elements get emphasized
while the spiritual core is gutted

often these folk come into the tradition and because they have good
organizing skills, resources, etc, (or looking at it strictly as a cashcow)
they become the acknowledged authorities
and use that power to start telling us what we can and cannot do

and we supposed to just sit back and say okay

im often asked when making presentations on the circuit
can whitefolk play the blues
my response is that if i can write novels, they can play the blues

but one hopes they have immersed themselves in the tradition
to the point where its instinct and not rote
and conduct themselves with a little cultural humility
when it come to proscribing what is and what aint

because i want african american culture to be one of the worlds definitive cultures
i want other folk to adopt african american culture

so i am totally in favor of the multiculti nature of hoodoo today
i love the fact that so many folk from so many cultures aspire to the hoodoo way
and i participate in general forums

but the roots of hoodoo are thoroughly grounded in african american culture
and destiny
and there are issues of cultural guidance here that aint got nothing to do w/whitefolk

and thats just the way that it is

she wrote in post above:
"Also, a system of magic/k, IMHO, is not a form of socio-cultural guidance, and also as Hoodoo is not a religion but solely a system of magic/k, nor is it specifically created only by or for African-Americans...how is it a for of socio-cultural/ethnic group guidance at all?"

my point exactly, she doesnt have a clue
she fiddling around on the surface of the game and doesnt have a
clue just how deep the roots go

folk like this want to strip hoodoo of all its cultural responsibilities
and tiptoe through a lala land of magical spells and witchery
of a tradition with no deeper meaning than making a living
off the pain of others

i have never said whitefolk etc shouldnt be allowed to practice hoodoo
and i have not tried to restrict different interpretations of what hoodoo practice entails
hoodoo is eclectic enuf to cover a wide variety of practice

but they have tried to tell me my downhome brand of hoodoo is unacceptable
gon come into our tradition, take over and tell us what we can and cannot do

dubois said a longtime ago, we got to live in two worlds
we live in the whiteworld and we live in the blackworld
once upon a time we had to deny our world to fit into theirs
that is no longer the case

we will not be defined out of existence

our struggle is to survive in the multiculti world of the future
as a distinct culture and people, distinct and empowered
while yet part of the multiculti thread

we wil not be defined out of existence

this is a standing tension for intellectuals and players
of my generation and i often feel out of touch with my insistence
on being a black voice

and when i get hit with those charges of racism
they make me squirm
and i try to make what adjustments i can to address that concern

i understand that this position makes her feel excluded
and i sympathize, makes me feel bad and perhaps wrong

but there are times when blackfolk have to come together
and address our concerns, without overseers warping the conversation

instead of discussing our issues
the conversation gets shifted to defending the right
to discuss our issues

fubu

if it makes her feel any better, i get a lot of flack from blackfolk too
about my interpertation of contemporary hoodoo
i get it from all sides

and in this case its clear that i made the right choice telling her no
cause she wasnt sincerely interested in dialogue
she just wanted to make a point and be a spy

a bad vibe

just the kind we
trying to avoid

in struggle
rickydoc flowers

once again i have been accused of being a racist
i get this charge all the time and im very susceptible to it
as you can probably tell from my many protestations
of being a black voice

recently received an request to join the hooodoo way listserve
from a practitioner on the rootwork list
as i knew of her i replied that it was a small list and black

next thing i knew she has placed what i thought was
a personal reply to a sincere inquiry on her weblog
with commentary as follows

i shall remove her name because i dont want
to get involved in a catfight:

i was wandering about the internet when i found
this my email to her on her weblog in following post:

Good Morning Occulties..
So we have our answer on "The Hoodoo Way," and here it is:

hello (nameless), rickydoc here

sorry about just getting back to you
about the hoodoo way
i dont really go checking that subscriber request thing
unless im in there for some reason or the other
hope you havent been hanging there long

im familiar with your work from your posts
from the rootwork list and you are a practitioner
that i respect which is why im answering

the hoodoo way is a very small list of about 20 25 folk
invitation only and black
its primary concern is hoodoo as an instrument of cultural guidance
the evolution of hoodoo as the indigenous african american spiritual system
with a responsibility for shaping the destiny of the race
the evolution of african american culture

hope you dont feel offended or anything
i am a believer in the cross cultural future of hoodoo

but my primary concern is hoodoo as a system of
african american cultural guidance

again, i hope you are not in some way offended
i respect you and your approach to practice

be well
arf

her commentary was as follows, not to me mind you
but on her weblog:

Very interesting. I have replied back that it is understandable that I am not welcome, seeing as that I am not African-American, or even African...well, at least for several milennia back. ;) Tho, to be honest, I don't think I can trace myself back past Charlamagne...and that's iffy at best. I do know I am related to Robert the Bruce, but I suspect being the relative of a Scottish king (and most of us Scot's are, since the guy had about 18 kids,) is not the same as being Black.

Although I understand this reasoning, I am not so much in agreement. I was a practicing Druid for awhile, and did not think that others needed to be of Irish descent (as I also am,) to be Druid... Or that Druidism was a way of shaping the current life of Irish people where ever we are, and that our experience was only unique to the Irish, and that no one could learn anything by participating...you know, and Druidism is a RELIGION, and not a magic/kal platform... I just felt that others and also practitioners had to understand that Druidism is not really Celticism, and that even when I was a Celt Reconstructionalist (also a relgion,) that none of that CR was Wicca. :) Also, a system of magic/k, IMHO, is not a form of socio-cultural guidance, and also as Hoodoo is not a religion but solely a system of magic/k, nor is it specifically created only by or for African-Americans...how is it a for of socio-cultural/ethnic group guidance at all? Please refer to the post "What Platform Is this Anyway," to discover how Hoodoo is actually a big melting pot of cultural beliefs owing a good deal of thanks to African-Americans, but not even close to as much as say, Vodou (which is a RELIGION) owes to Africans.

Anyhow, label me racist if you would like, but this feels very reverse racist to me. I was very polite to Rickydoc, but all of the same... I appreciate the cold rejection letter, and do not appreciate being kept out of a group solely because of my race, especially in regards to a magic/kal platform rather than a religion...tho either is unacceptable. I guess I can't chirp on about the Black experience in America, tho, so for that reason I guess my pasty skin would disclude me. I did date someone who was an 8th Black in college, and he would be just as good as I am about talking about the Black experience (which is no good at all,) so I really don't see how the color of one's skin is so important...hmmm...I never really judged anyone on their race or color of their skin, so I guess I will never understand. Ah well...worse things have happened
.

i also get these kinds of responses when i do newsletters
that are overtly addressed to solving black issues
this is a big issue for any blackvoice trying to represent blackfolk these days
whenever blackfolk try to get together and address issues that concern us
we are accused of being reverse racists

but if i was to have let her in
it would have chilled frank conversation amongst us

it would have been just like the general hoodoo membership forums
that we are all part of

and not one concerned with hoodoos role as a cultural instrument
as the indigenous african american spiritual system

we have had all these folk who come to hoodoo
as the spiritual flavor of the month
after they have tried druidism, wicca, whatever
and then start telling us what our tradition is about
they are concerned only with folkmagic and with spells of various sorts
and anything else is frowned upon
any consideration of hoodoos traditional role of community guidance
and consideration of hoodoos traditional role of cultural guidance
and the role that we would like to have it play of destinic guidance
is of absolutely no interest to them
because they arent african american
and the hoodoo world they see is stripped of all its cultural responsibilities
they would act as if gullah jack, boukman dutty, nanny accompong, and
zumbi of palmares never existed
and that hoodoo never had a role of protecting and guiding the community
as does any spiritual system worth the time of day

they would have hoodoo be strictly a spicer newage flavor of wicca
and i object to that
i am not interested in folk magic practice
i am interested in high magic practice

this is not necessarily a racial distinction
but it occasionally becomes one

most of the spirtual travelers who light upon hoodoo
for the moment are about a 100 years out of date
in their practice of hoodoo

like folk who come to the blues and think only
old country blues are valid blues while ignoring
folk pushing the envelop like little axe or
chris thomas king

they practice archival hoodoo

and they come into the hoodoo tradition and
start making pronouncement about how hoodoo aint black no more

and make big issue of the fact that hoodoo has all these other
traditions that contribute to its thread and that makes it not african american
anymore, but african american culture has always been a bastard culture
composed of many threads, and so too is hoodoo

the primary objection here is that so many of our cultural instruments
get taken over by the majority culture and get pronounced sanitized

or the lesser more commercial elements get emphasized
while the spiritual core is gutted

often these folk come into the tradition and because they have good
organizing skills, resources, etc, (or looking at it strictly as a cashcow)
they become the acknowledged authorities
and use that power to start telling us what we can and cannot do

and we supposed to just sit back and say okay

im often asked when making presentations on the circuit
can whitefolk play the blues
my response is that if i can write novels, they can play the blues

but one hopes they have immersed themselves in the tradition
to the point where its instinct and not rote
and conduct themselves with a little cultural humility
when it come to proscribing what is and what aint

because i want african american culture to be one of the worlds definitive cultures
i want other folk to adopt african american culture

so i am totally in favor of the multiculti nature of hoodoo today
i love the fact that so many folk from so many cultures aspire to the hoodoo way
and i participate in general forums

but the roots of hoodoo are thoroughly grounded in african american culture
and destiny
and there are issues of cultural guidance here that aint got nothing to do w/whitefolk

and thats just the way that it is

she wrote in post above:
"Also, a system of magic/k, IMHO, is not a form of socio-cultural guidance, and also as Hoodoo is not a religion but solely a system of magic/k, nor is it specifically created only by or for African-Americans...how is it a for of socio-cultural/ethnic group guidance at all?"

my point exactly, she doesnt have a clue
she fiddling around on the surface of the game and doesnt have a
clue just how deep the roots go

folk like this want to strip hoodoo of all its cultural responsibilities
and tiptoe through a lala land of magical spells and witchery
of a tradition with no deeper meaning than making a living
off the pain of others

i have never said whitefolk etc shouldnt be allowed to practice hoodoo
and i have not tried to restrict different interpretations of what hoodoo practice entails
hoodoo is eclectic enuf to cover a wide variety of practice

but they have tried to tell me my downhome brand of hoodoo is unacceptable
gon come into our tradition, take over and tell us what we can and cannot do

dubois said a longtime ago, we got to live in two worlds
we live in the whiteworld and we live in the blackworld
once upon a time we had to deny our world to fit into theirs
that is no longer the case

we will not be defined out of existence

our struggle is to survive in the multiculti world of the future
as a distinct culture and people, distinct and empowered
while yet part of the multiculti thread

we wil not be defined out of existence

this is a standing tension for intellectuals and players
of my generation and i often feel out of touch with my insistence
on being a black voice

and when i get hit with those charges of racism
they make me squirm
and i try to make what adjustments i can to address that concern

i understand that this position makes her feel excluded
and i sympathize, makes me feel bad and perhaps wrong

but there are times when blackfolk have to come together
and address our concerns, without overseers warping the conversation

instead of discussing our issues
the conversation gets shifted to defending the right
to discuss our issues

fubu

if it makes her feel any better, i get a lot of flack from blackfolk too
about my interpertation of contemporary hoodoo
i get it from all sides

and in this case its clear that i made the right choice telling her no
cause she wasnt sincerely interested in dialogue
she just wanted to make a point and be a spy

a bad vibe

just the kind we
trying to avoid

in struggle
rickydoc flowers

Comments

Great weblog. Saw this post, and wanted to let you know that you were absolutely right in what you said. There are times when people of color need their own space, and people who claim to be allies need to respect that.

-hadiya

[nice girl]

Hi everyone

I am an African woman living in Vancouver, Canada and I am very interested in learning about voodoo and the practice of hoodoo. However, I do not want to learn through books or any kind of media. I would like to learn on a face to face bases with someone who is learned in the art. Do you know where I can find a voodoo priest or priestess anywhere in the Vancouver area? If you have any advice to give me please email me at [email protected]

Many Thanks