Just trying to figure things out. Amalgamation of different Paganism stuff as I try to figure out where I am and who I want to be. Avatar is "The Star" card from the Shadowscapes Tarot Deck. She/Her/Hers
False Dichotomies and White Entitlement, Chapter 2 in a Series on Appropriation and Ethnocide in the Witchcraft Community
Pt. 1 | Pt. 2 | more incoming...
There are many modes and frames of thinking in the discussion about appropriation that are, at their core, colonial - and thus fundamentally incompatible with proper deconstruction. One such colonial way of thinking that has deeply influenced the current state of things is thinking in binaries. The discussion around appropriation revolves around two primary binaries: appropriation and not-appropriation (or appropriation and appreciation, which also implies 'bad' and 'good'), and closed practices and open practices. These would make it seem simple, but in reality, culture engagement is a spectrum. Just like the world is not as simple as plain good and evil, the same is true for appropriation.
Open and Closed Practices: Oops! All Performative!
The latter of those aforementioned binaries, the concept of there being "closed" and "open" practices, is a very new development within internet politics that is practically unique to the spiritual sphere. And for good reason: it's bullshit. "What?!" I know, I'm sorry, I realize this is the axiom of wokeness around which many of us have built our conduct within the community - me too, when I first joined. But there's a reason that this doesn't exist anywhere outside of our community. It was made up in an attempt to radically simplify avoiding appropriation, but in the process has instead done severe damage by being deeply reductive, and even xenophobic!
Like we discussed in the last post, a core feature of white supremacy is the reduction of all culture into a binary of "white culture" and "not white culture." This idea is often unintentionally perpetuated by the open/closed dichotomy. Any culture that is associated with white people or whiteness is considered "open," which goes on to then imply that any culture associated with not-whiteness is closed. This is the definition of racialization, and engaging in it primes your mind to apply the same principle in other contexts as well. It makes non-whiteness register to the beholder as foreign.
This turns into xenophobia quickly, and goes on to do further harm. The severity with which we now treat the concept of a "closed practice" has resulted in the severe othering of its practitioners, to the point where they often feel silenced and dismissed, rather than respected. Out of fear of doing something wrong or being accused of appropriation or being complicit in it, "closed practices" have become deeply taboo. Not to be spoken of or posted about except in the context of condemning their appropriation. When there is a space for practitioners of closed practices to speak or post, it's often a single channel locked behind a special role, or some such. The practitioners and their practices are treated as one monolith with no nuance, and hidden away in a small section where they cannot share with the rest of the community, as though just hearing about a practice one can't engage in is dangerous. The way we treat closed practices in the community does not uplift its practitioners nor represent them, it others and excludes them in the name of protection that nobody asked for.
Further, the entire principle operates on an assumption of entitlement, or a right to ownership. There is an implied dividing line, somewhere in this linear narrative, where you cross from "this I can have," into "this I can't have." Or alternatively, "this I can use," into "this I can't use." But in reality, like we covered in part one, culture is not a matter of ownership or consumption. It's a matter of identity, experience and interaction. Cultures are not linear, nor static, nor do they exist in isolation. They are always changing, along an infinite number of axes, and so are their relationships to other cultures and systems in the world. It is easy and comfortable to condense your world down into binaries, but it teaches you nothing about culture as a concept nor about individual cultures, and that is a problem in a community oriented around engaging with intangible cultural heritage (religions and their praxes).
And there lies another glaring problem with the closed/open dichotomy. It doesn't teach you what appropriation is, because our treatment of appropriation is oriented around convenience over commitment. Rather than learning how your behavior perpetuates harm, rather than deconstructing the mindsets you came up in, you're provided with easy outs. The open/closed dichotomy gives you an opportunity to perform cultural competence without actually learning it. The truth is that if you aren't able to recognize appropriation on your own, you are not sufficiently equipped to engage with cultural heritage. If you need to ask somebody else "is it appropriation to..." the answer is, definitionally, yes. Because you are demonstrating a desire to consume something before gaining the cultural competency needed to understand your relationship with it.
These labels can't accurately represent the cultural dynamics around appropriation, already having resulted in terms like "semi-closed" to try to bridge the gap. Because, realistically, who wants their culture, the thing that makes them and their people who they are, deemed "open" for anybody to do with what they will irregardless of familiarity and respect? And on the other hand, who wants their culture completely shunned?
Objectivity and the Burden of Education
Another notable flaw of the current popular understanding of appropriation is the delusion of objectivity. 'Objectivity' has infiltrated the western mind on a very large scale, and nowadays many people live their lives under the assumption that there is an objective truth contained within the world, largely as a result of flawed education and misconceptions about science. But science does not presume itself objective, and 'objectivity' as a concept itself is entirely subjective.
Paradoxical, I know, but here's the important thing to remember: cultural appropriation is not a matter of fact and falsity. There is no objectively correct, final answer on what is or is not appropriation - ever.
That includes an attempted final answer from an individual from the culture itself that you have selected to answer this question. The value of cultural consensus cannot be overstated, and it is unequivocally true that the final authority on a culture is that culture itself. There is nothing morally wrong with asking the opinion of people within a given culture to inform your opinion, in fact it is highly respectable and something we should all do in the pursuit of decentering whiteness. That said, there is a persistent habit within the community of using single individuals who associate with a given culture as the final authority on that culture - and all questions about what is and is not permissible are directed at that person.
This isn't always nonconsensual: some people willingly take on this role in their community. But culture is not contained within a single person, and there are significant risks associated with this method. For one, making one person the final authority on their culture is tokenizing them and their culture. It diminishes the variable, experiential and interpersonal nature of culture, disregards the fact that it is something far bigger than one person by nature, and chooses one person to represent all of it for the sake of convenience. Whether or not the person you are directing your questions or desire for education at is taking up that role willingly, it is definitionally reductive. Further, this method of seeking answers places a burden upon the broader culture where members of it cannot afford to be uneducated about these ethics or unprepared to answer these questions, lest one person's lack of education or preparation becomes the source of further harm to the greater group.
This presents in other ways, too, like the "(BI)POC friend" who is treated as the supreme arbiter of what is and is not racist by a group of their white friends. Again, sometimes consensual, sometimes not, but in either case: racist and reductive. In the case of delegating all of your educational needs to 'POC' at large, there is another, larger issue too. Aside from the laziness displayed in this behavior - putting the burden of education and social justice on those already suffering under these systems for convenience's sake, without ever doing one's own research or actively criticizing one's own patterns - there is the matter of stereotyping. While it is certainly true that POC and indigenous people generally know far more about systemic oppression than white(-passing) people, it is still racist to place the burden of educating you on people other than yourself purely based on their skin color. Assigning a trait, positive or negative, to somebody based on their race, is engaging in racism. In assuming a 'POC' has these traits to benefit you - educatedness, the ability and/or desire to pass on that education, 'correctness' in general - you are assigning traits to somebody based on their (perceived) race with no room for nuance.
Of course, people who take it upon themselves to educate others on their culture deserve our utmost gratitude, and to be taken seriously. You must continue seeking out the experiences and opinions of those more heavily affected than you, and strive to most amplify their voices. But there should always be an acknowledgment on the part of any speaker that their experience is not representative of everyone's, and conversely, the people questioning them should not use that person as a one-stop-shop for all their answers on racism and appropriation purely because of their skin color.
Instead, you should view cultural appropriation as an ongoing conversation. Cultural dynamics and boundaries are constantly changing, and as a result, so does the way we can interact with culture. What is and is not helpful is always changing, and independently of that, so is what is and is not seen as acceptable. Further, the general movement towards liberation for all is always changing its approach based on the most recent research or education. I feel very confident in saying that how the movement is currently organized will be subject to extreme criticism in the future, possibly the near future - and that's a good thing! It means we are improving. But it also means that liberation and decolonization don't end. It goes on forever, and so does the process of learning. Not just for white people, but for everyone dedicated to improving the world.
But, when accepting that there is no objectivity in ethics, it can be tempting to then disregard the notion of appropriation altogether, to devalue the opinions of people more affected than you, or conversely, it can make it a lot more difficult to argue against appropriation and culture theft because you cannot make claims of objective correctness. How do you educate people, yourself included, about appropriation and coloniality when you can't make claims of objective moral superiority? A big part of answering that question is understanding why culture and identity is important to begin with.
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In the next part of this series I'll aim to illustrate why culture is important and should have a right to exist, and attempt to describe a potential balance between objectivism and relativity in the moral side of this issue. After that I hope to then move on to elaborately cover what appropriation is and can be, and how to eliminate and combat it. My goal will not be to prescribe people views so much as to dismantle ones that are already widely held, as it has been, and offer potential replacements or handlebars for their own deconstructive process.
Further reading:
Looking Through Whiteness: Objectivity, Racism, Method, and Responsibility - Philip Mack
Moral Anti-Realism in the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy Archive
Racism is a Moral Issue - Tim Soutphommasane
Race and Moral Psychology - Robin Zheng in the Oxford Handbook of Moral Psychology
Racism, Moralism, and Social Criticism - Tommie Shelby
The Black/White Binary Paradigm of Race: The "Normal Science" of American Racial Thought - Juan F. Perea
Latino/As, Asian Americans, and the Black-White Binary - Linda Martín Alcoff
Xenophobia and Racism - David Haekwon Kim and Ronald R. Sundstrom
Cultural Tariffing: Appropriation and the Right to Cross Cultural Boundaries - Abraham Oshotse et al.
Tokenism and Its Long-Term Consequences: Evidence from the Literary Field - Clayton Childress et al.
Gods of the Blood: The Pagan Revival and White Separatism - Matthias Gardell
These aren't all equally relevant to the exact point I am making here, presumably because there isn't much literature on this specific intersection to begin with. I'm extremely open (begging, one might say) to suggestions and submissions, but these are still very worthwhile and relevant reads.
Strongly suggest y’all read through this full thing. Like, actually, this time, not in bad faith.
I want to tap on one specific point Idis brings up here:
…which goes on to then imply that any culture associated with not-whiteness is closed.
This is an attitude that caused me to struggle a great deal when I first started getting past the ‘being pagan means being a Hellenic pagan’ phase of my practice and started looking into my own cultural background via Slavic paganism.
Now, I’d been generally aware of how Slavic ethnic groups never quite meet the bar for whiteness in many circumstances. I’d seen it in how my surname was mocked growing up, in how Slavic women were always included in the category of being “mail order brides” along with Asian women, orientalist language used to describe Slavs as exotic/animal/other, the use of “genetic background” to question Slavic racial makeups, and so on.
However, going into online pagan spaces and even mentioning that I was starting to study Slavic pre-Christian religion meant getting grilled after making an introduction, or pulled into private “conversations” where I would be berated by a Wiccan that considered themselves cultured and woke because their brother-in-law’s cousin’s best friend worked with a guy named Ivan once. Even when I would point out that I was ethnically Slavic, if that was an acceptable answer to the authorities that be, I would be instructed to not discuss it or discuss it vaguely. If it was unacceptable, I would have why I didn’t already know things be challenged.
When I began to explore Slavic history beyond my middle school-junior high interest in (NOT commendation of) the Russian Empire and Soviet history, everything I came across a significant amount of information that would call the “Slavic paganism and magic is closed” declaration into question. First off, the idea of the label of ‘slavic’ being an all encompassing label is both inaccurate and colonial. Stalin would be proud. Second, modern Slavic paganism, Rodnovery, or any related religious movement, is a reconstruction of what we think was likely based on historic accounts and what traditions survived Christianization; any Slavic practitioner that is not a Nazi would tell you that. Third, when ethnographers engage with Slavic folk healers and practitioners, there is often a concern of a lack of interest from the younger generations in their communities, and some practitioners make the decision to share their corpus of work and teachings as a means for the tradition to survive at all, even if older traditions dictated the need for apprenticeships and proving oneself. That third point begs the question, if community elders themselves, in some cases, are calling for the sharing of information as a means of keeping a centuries-long tradition alive, where does Arson from discord.com get the authority to tell someone who is researching that they can’t because it’s “closed”.
As someone who has gone into spaces and tried to correct misinformation about the closedness of Slavic practices, even by just trying to get people to concede that this discussion might maybe possibly be nuanced. I came with sources, I came politely, I was happy to answer questions (or find answers if I didn’t know), and most of these places didn’t, don’t care. The defenses were often “well, we’ll keep it listed as closed just to be safe” or “well, we have had a team of researchers (teenagers to people in their mid 20s with access to google) put a lot of effort into this list and we trust them more than you.”. What none of them were willing to say is that they do not view Slavic practices and cultures as ordinary enough to be accessible. They are exotic, they are distant, they are not to be touched, even as they die out.
The black and white attitude about closedness and cultural respect ultimately does a disservice to people who very well may be well-intentioned. It comes from a desire to prevent appropriation but be colonial in how they do it. Instead of talking with members of cultural groups, or looking at things on a case-by-case basis, or even be open to changing their minds, people feel that “closed” cultures need to be sheltered and protected in a way that is as convenient as possible for them while still making them feel like the good person in the dichotomy. It’s what happens when political correctness becomes self-serving rather than respectful.
As a symptom of this, even with practices that are straight up closed or initiatory or not anybody else’s business, people who practice “open” practices often commit one of two failings, sometimes both. They believe a practice that is closed is always more powerful than one that is open, just like how baby allies think any member of any marginalized community can’t be wrong about anything ever or saying such makes someone a bigot, and they believe that open cultures do not deserve the same level of care, reverence, and effort that closed cultures recieve, which is also a colonial attitude. “Well, we already have this. We can use it however we want.”
This kind of unspoken racialization benefits no one, and is how we get idiots on the internet talking about “Would you rather get into a fight with a hoodoo practitioner or a Slavic witch”, as if both categories aren’t fucking people participating in their culture.
Y’all I’m being so serious when I say this: go to the library for witchcraft reasons.
You can usually find books on witchcraft, yes, but there’s also field guides on local foraging and wildlife, cookbooks, books that teach you how to craft and DIY, books about environmental protection and stewardship, books on how to use herbs medicinally, books about other religions, cultures, and spiritual practices. My favorite local library even has a seed swapping program and fantastic resources to research your own family history!
The sea is a temple. The woods are a temple. Your own bedroom is a temple. The world is imbued with the spiritual. Worship is an act, not a place, and it can happen spontaneously, in reaction to the beauty of a moment.
The sea is a temple. The woods are a temple. Your own bedroom is a temple. The world is imbued with the spiritual. Worship is an act, not a place, and it can happen spontaneously, in reaction to the beauty of a moment.
January 3 ● Full Moon in Cancer (Wolf Moon)
January 18 ● New Moon in Capricorn
February 1 ● Imbolc
February 1 ● Full Moon in Leo (Snow Moon)
February 17 ● New Moon in Aquarius
February 26 - March 20 ● Mercury Retrograde
March 3 ● Full Moon in Virgo (Worm Moon)
March 19 ● New Moon in Pisces
March 20 ● Ostara
April 2 ● Full Moon in Libra (Pink Moon)
April 17 ● New Moon in Aries
May 1 ● Beltane
May 1 ● Full Moon in Scorpio (Flower Moon)
May 16 ● New Moon in Taurus
May 31 ● Full Moon in Sagittarius (Blue Moon)
June 20-21 ● Litha
June 15 ● New Moon in Gemini
June 29 ● Full Moon in Capricorn (Strawberry Moon)
June 29 - July 23 ● Mercury Retrograde
July 14 ● New Moon in Cancer
July 29 ● Full Moon in Aquarius (Buck Moon)
August 1 ● Lammas
August 12 ● New Moon in Leo
August 28 ● Full Moon (Sturgeon Moon)
September 11 ● New Moon in Virgo
September 23 ● Mabon
September 26 ● Full Moon in Aries(Harvest Moon)
October 10 ● New Moon in Libra
October 24 - November 13 ● Mercury in Retrograde
October 26 ● Full Moon in Taurus (Hunter's Moon)
October 31 ● Samhain
November 9 ● New Moon in Scorpio
November 24 ● Full Moon in Gemini (Beaver Moon)
December 9 ● New Moon in Sagittarius
December 21 ● Yule
December 24 ● Full Moon in Cancer (Cold Moon)
Can confirm, as someone who spends a LOT of time researching pagan authors, Mari Silva is one of the (unfortunately many) AI authors out there. "She" has put out dozens of books in four years. Do not buy, do not read.
I've said this before, but if you are a gentile who wants to worship or work with Lilith, you should consider Zoe instead
Who is Zoe and why should you consider worshiping or working with her instead of Lilith? To put it short, Zoe is a figure from Gnosticism who is often equated with the snake from Genesis and is credited with liberating humanity. Or to put it in other words, Zoe is who a lot of gentile pagans and witches think Lilith is. However unlike Lilith, Zoe is an open being from a dead practice. And also unlike Lilith, Zoe is not a baby murdering demon
Zoe is also Eve (well, a "higher" Eve). She comes down as Eve, then leaves her body (creating another Eve) so that the archons can't steal her spiritual power, and then she becomes the serpent and teaches younger Eve and Adam about the nature of the universe.
The myths dont represent the Gods Themselves, but the domains They preside over.
Lord Zeus is portrayed as cruel, unjust, and greedy because he is the King of the Gods, and Kings during the time those myths were created were less than fair to say the least…
Lord Hades and Lord Thanatos, being the gods of the dead and death, respectively, are portayed as cruel and merciless because thats what death is. It steals people from their families.
Lord Posidon is the King of the Seas, and is portrayed as volatile and unpredictable because the sea is just that. It will make you rich or youll just fucking die in a shipwreck.
Dont hate on the gods because of their myths. Thats just stupid.
Other people may not have noticed the way that certain people are slowly giving the gods more eurocentric features in their art, but rest assured. I do. I see the way that noses are becoming thin and straight. I see it.
In general, I think the community could use more POC representation. Not just in the gods themselves, but more discussion about the intersectionality of one’s race and religion
@wayfind-er honestly, I feel the reason many people don't want to have those talks about race and religion is why many poc and black pagans/helpol/etc feel left out the community. I saw on tiktok of a black women just staying "oh its nice that my body was something that was worship when it was represented on the goddess Aphrodite" (mind you she not religious or spiritual) and many helpol/pagans were calling her so much racist shit that it was almost tragic. Even I seen black/poc helpol/pagans who make the gods look similar to them get told that "they don't look like that" when its just some teen or even younger just wanting to look up on a deity (something divine) and have them look like them even for a bit.
Race in religious/spiritual spaces makes people want to plug their ears when they shouldn't. PoC and black practitioner are deined, turned away and down right doubt about their experiences. Many White people in these spaces haven't unpack or don't want to. As a black person who experiences this first hand in real life, I started to keep my religious/spiritual practices to the privacy of my own home and mind which, like many like me, makes it a long (sometimes lonely) journey.
This is just my two cents of what I seen, heard, and experienced in my own life.
Honestly, being Black or a POC in spiritual spaces can be super tiring.
I am Black too, and have been spiritual in one way or another my entire life. Not to long ago, I was looking for Spiritual/Pagan events to join, and I found one in the mountains. I looked at all the photos from the previous years and there wasn’t a single POC or Black person involved - immediately, it didn’t feel safe anymore, and so I never went.
I can count on one hand the number of Pagans I’ve met that are Black (two hands if I count all POCs). When I’ve told people irl that I’m Pagan or a Witch, it always turns into them asking me about Voodou and to curse people they don’t like. In a way, I feel like we are not taken as seriously as others may be. I say I believe in the Hellenic Gods and they look at my skin, shake their head and say that can’t possibly be true.
It’s hard, and tiring to constantly explain myself to others. As a community, I’m not even sure how we reconcile this. That’s part of why I feel that we need more Black/POC representation, but at the same time, the people who take up that mantle will have to bare the burden of the bigotry and hatred they’ll ultimately get for just people Black/a POC.
Wholeheartedly support this. I don't really engage in irl worship communities, it wouldn't really be safe where I live, but I try very hard to cultivate this kind of energy in my online worship space. Our depictions of the gods reflect ourselves, it's only natural we see ourselves in the divine. There is absolutely nothing inherent in the gods in classical depictions, that's just it, classics of the art, but by no means the final word in our depictions of the gods nor their 'true form'. That's silly. They are divine. Our art of them reflects how we view and understand beings that are naturally going to be above any one perspective, and peoples' worship will vary too. People of all races are welcome to worship the gods, make art of them that looks like themselves and be in our communities.
I'm genuinely sorry to anyone facing this kind of prejudice. I feel the same way of not knowing entirely how to reconcile it.
“Our art of them reflects how we view and understand beings that are naturally going to be above any one perspective— People of all races are welcome to worship the gods, make art of them that looks like themselves and be in our communities”
So because I damn near went over the table at somebody this past weekend, I'd like to remind everyone to WATCH FOR NAZI DOGWHISTLE SYMBOLS IN WITCHY SPACES.
Look them up (because there are a LOT), educate yourself, and keep your eyes open at gatherings and on the socials. If something seems skeevy, it probably is.
Remember - the first Nazi that walks through the door of your community space needs to be told to get the fuck out immediately and in no uncertain terms. Doesn't matter if they're being friendly or patronizing a business or "just there to check out the vibes." They do not belong there, they are not welcome, and they endanger the safety of the entire group. Because if you let one in, their goosestepping buddies will follow.
Don't wait for them to cause trouble. Throw them out. The first one is always there to test the waters.
No place in the circle for fascists.
May you raise your eyes and never bow your head @magiccalmeanderings - Tumblr Blog | Tumgag
