Newest Twitter Updates ||>
1.09.2007 ||> When "Witchier than Thou" isn't enough
I was going to post today about how much I'm digging podcasts, but I really think I should blog about that at another time. A time I feel calmer. Right now, it's just rage.
About 7 years ago, when I was younger and more volatile, I wrote a rather trite rant on Wiccans, which is here. I was really pissed off at the witchier-than-thou attitude that Wiccans take. Because, apparently, if you don't dress like a Stevie Nicks knockoff (or a goth), you aren't Wiccan enough. I got that attitude again at a the last Ren Faire I went to when a woman with hair way too long for her face took a little shot at me when I remarked that while figurines of the Goddess abound, there aren't ever any little God fetishes around.
"I've never seen that," she said. It took a lot of my inner strength to not say, "Well, I've been a Wiccan for 14 years, and there are. Just not ever here."
Which brings me to my rant. (Those of my friends and family that can't identify with Wicca, please come back tomorrow if you you start to glaze over.)
I went to my new favorite podcast yesterday, Witch in the City, and listened to it this morning while working. The topic was about stereotypes and just blatant racism in Wicca. Serenity, the lovely podcaster, is an African American Witch in Arizona, talking about the discrimination she has faced. Not from members of the Black community for being Wiccan, but from us, for being Black. And woo-boy does she have some crazy stories about what people say and do to you if you are not a white, wannablessedbe. So, I just have to ask:
Is the Neo-Pagan community so large and uniform that we need to resort to fucking blatant racism to keep our numbers to a minimum? Are we just too goddamned welcoming of gays and transgendered people that we have to find someone to pick on? Do store owners really need to act like prejudiced mini-mart owners following her and her husband around occult shops like she's going to steal something?
It's bad enough that so many of our number are conforming to an ideal of white women in broomstick skirts and long hair or "spooky" make-up that it has become a crap stereotype of its own. We already lack diversity in so many ways, but to realize that it could be because of close-minded bigots within the community makes me sick to my stomach.
So many of us have been shit on, either by our old religions, or by family and friends whose dearest wish is for us to conform to their idea of god. What in the world would posess anyone who already knows what it's like to face discrimination of that nature to in turn shit on someone because of the color of their skin? I cannot even express the depth to which that is completely unacceptable. It is unacceptable for anyone, but moreso for followers of a religion that advertises being accepting of everything and everyone.
There is something wrong with this, and it needs to be fixed.
0 snow blossoms
