As an African-American Pagan, sometimes I feel the pressure of discomfort as I celebrate my faith. Its not as if I feel alienated by others within my faith because of my skin color, not by a long shot. The discomfort stems from having very little contact with other pagans who happen to be black as well.
Its odd that so many people who have pagan ancestry are vastly detatched from that spirituality in my eyes. Within my own community I see plenty who honor their African ancestry with the garb and regalia and sometimes speech, yet once you try and go into the spiritual aspects that went along with the clothing suddenly they flatline.
I understand that during the time of slavery we were heavily indoctrinated with the Christian mindset, either that or be erroneously punished; but now that we don't have to worry about such a reprimand, we as a people seem to blackout that religious time period.
As I look at the people who are around me I sometimes feel the insecurity of feeling like the "other", as if I don't belong with the swaths of red, brown, blonde and black hair. As if I'm unwelcomed, not by others' actions or deeds, but by having no one to relate to me on a cultural perspective of being a black Pagan. I have no issue with my brothers or sisters of European descent, I just wish there were more African-Americans like me who know how it feels to leave the predominantly Christian culture.
I love the picture at the end and know exactly how you feel, I love your youtube videos because there aren't that many black pagan youtubers you can watch at the moment. So I was really excited when I found out about you and you're very fun to watch and your blog seems to have a lot of great information as well =) I'm still new to being a Pagan even though I've been one since I was 13 because I live in the South and there arent that many Pagans in my area + the little groups I've checked out weren't really for me.
ReplyDeleteI feel this way a lot of the time, but not because of a racial background, but because of how I, personally, understand my pagan faith, and how others understand theirs.
ReplyDeleteI don't feel that there's anyone, in ANY pagan community, who can truly understand how I practice my faith and how I understand my faith in reference to theirs.
I wish you luck though, its very much a shame that Judeo-Christian peoples separated the European Tribes from their original faiths, leaving us to put the pieces back together hundreds of years later, and an even worse how the descendants of African Tribes were also separated and expected to forget their ancestry.