Hoodoo isn’t voodoo.
Hoodoo isn’t a racist stereotype.
Hoodoo isn’t the commercialization of black culture.
Hoodoo is sweetening and souring, crossing and uncrossing,
drawing and banishing, domination, fixing,
conjuring, candle reading, casting candle spells, jar spells,
petition papers, hot foot tracks, war water, mojo bags,
and nkisi bottles, but the Hoodoo itself can’t be bottled up…
Hoodoo isn’t just a certain set of magical techniques.
Hoodoo is becoming a tree whisperer, speaking to the plants, the trees, the herbs, the dirt, the roots.
Hoodoo is remembering those little traditions your auntie or your pops taught you when you were a kid, and realizing they have so much power.
Hoodoo is making do with whatever ingredients you can afford between paychecks so that you can get more paychecks.
Hoodoo is our silence when we’re listening for the whispered guidance of ancestors, spirits, or deities to teach us our path.
Hoodoo is reclaiming agency by cursing those who seek to take our power, our pride, and our self-determination away.
Hoodoo is following in the footsteps of our enslaved ancestors, in awe of their strength and in remembrance of their pain.
Hoodoo is tuning into our DNA and channeling black magic of the diaspora.
The magic isn’t just how we do it,
germansingergirl
ellievsbear
kaledo-art
jbbartram-illu
annaxmalina
