Too often the conversation about cultural flows across color lines devolves into a useless debate about appropriation versus appreciation, a reductive rhetoric that misses the point when people of color are not only replaced, but also rendered invisible. There is no dearth of guides and how-tos in cyberspace that define cultural appropriation with a negative connotation—as the “selecting of certain aspects of a culture, ignoring their original significance, for the purpose of belittling it as a trend.” Appreciation, on the other hand, is positioned as the superior choice, since it involves “honoring and respecting another culture and its practices, as a way to gain knowledge and understanding.”
Rumya Puchta, ‘Yoga and the Maintenance of White Womanhood‘ on Namaste Nation
What these definitions miss entirely is that “culture” is not something material that exists separate from actual human beings. Quite the opposite, the social mechanism by which a culture becomes appropriated relies on a simple truth—that Whiteness, and White womanhood in particular, need constant care and feeding to survive.
For months that moment has left me wondering—what is Grace in the face of indignity and injustice?
Rumya Puchta, ‘On Yoga and White Public Spaces‘
Is it abdication?
Is it apathy?
Or it is action?
While getting lost in the internet I stumbled over this interview with Lasara Firefox Allen, focusing on their book Jailbreaking the Goddess.
From Misha Magdalene, on Outside the Charmed Circle on Patheos Pagan, an article on ‘The Unbearable Whiteness of Being Pagan‘.
Brandy Williams, author of The Woman Magician (a book I dearly want to read!), wrote a few articles about the term and usage of ‘black magic’. Here is her shorter post on Patheos, and the longer (much longer) piece on her own website.
Jumping off from there to an article by Shannon Barber: ‘Black Magic, Black Heart, Black Skin: Decolonizing White Witchcraft‘. A line that stood out to me was, ‘I will not be held in the sunshine when what I need is moonlight.‘
And a final quote:
Soon, nearly everyone could agree that racism was the evil work of people with hate in their hearts — bigots. This was a convenient thing for white Americans to believe. Racism, they could say, was the work of racists. And wherever you looked, there were no racists: only good men like Wallace, minding the welfare of their black fellow citizens, or the segregationist South Carolina senator Strom Thurmond, defending states’ rights. Racism definitely existed, at some point — no one was out there denying that slavery had happened — but its residue had settled only in the hearts of the most unsavory individuals. Society as a whole didn’t need reform for the sins of a few.
Greg Howard, ‘The Easiest Way to Get Rid of Racism? Just Redefine It.’ in The New York Times