Content Warning Tips
Instead of writing “age regression” or “infantilization” in your warnings, be honest and use “pedophilia.”
AND
Instead of writing “dubious consent” (dubcon) or “non-consensual,” be direct and use “rape.”
Regional/Cultural specific tropes to avoid:
Arctic NA Natives:
Plains Tribes:
Southwest:
Central/Mesoamericans:
My friend Tula is from Slidell Louisiana they evacuated with their friend Saph to another friend’s house. They’re unsure what they’ll go back to when trees, power lines, flood water is cleared. They were effected by hurricane Ida if anyone can donate or spread this post please help out. Slidell is mega close to New Orleans to give people a picture of what they might come back to. They’re worried everything might have been destroyed by flood water etc Tula needs to find housing again please share $1-$5 helps out <3
In the wake of Hurricane Ida I have created a document highlighting some resources, both local and national, that are providing relief efforts for those effected. These efforts range form rescue and cleanup to providing food, water, and shelter. If you are able, consider donating. Thanks!
There are so many levels to racism you guys. There’s denial, ignorance, remaining silent about the issues, internalized racism, sterotyping, fetishization, white savior complex, culture appropriation, victim blaming (respectability policitics) white washing, anti-blackness, misogynoir (the discrimination and hate against black women specifically) denying one’s privilege and power, abusing one’s privelege, wanting to be an ally but still dominating the conversation, seperating yourself from the problem because you think racism in your area or country does not exist or as not as bad as another. etc. etc. etc. All of these can be done consiously or unconsiously. So don’t think you have to be a old white conservative male from the backwoods of Mississippi with a klan hood to perpetuate any of these. You can mean so well and still be a racist. The path to hell is paved with good intentions. Pls ask yourself some questions and self-reflect.
Let me start this by saying that, as far as my knowledge of Paganism and Polytheism as a whole goes, I’m what the internet witch community calls a “Baby Witch”. I’m stating this out of the gate because I know there will be lots of people, including witches who have more experience on the craft than me, who might decide to ignore what I have to say based on that fact alone, stating that I’m not knowledgeable enough to give my opinion about this.
Here’s the kicker: I’m a ‘baby witch’, yes, but I’m also a twenty-six year old Venezuelan woman. I’m an adult. I’m Latina. I’m a Christian-raised Pagan,but I’m also a Latinoamerican woman over all other things including that. I grew up on this culture, these are my roots. It is because of this background than I’m writing this post today.
Looking through the “Paganism” and “Witchcraft” tags of this website, I’ve seen a few posts throwing indigenous deities and spirits’ names around on lists alongside deties of open cultures. Yes, you can know better by doing your own research and not going by what just a random Tumblr user wrote on one post (as I hope its the case with everyone on this website), but the fact that pagan beginners are still getting fed misinformation is still worrisome to me.
There’s nothing like reading a so-called expert putting Ixchen (Maya), Xolotl (Nahuatl) and Papa Legba (Vodou) on the same damn list as Norse, Hellenic and Kemetic deities and tagging it on the tags aimed at beginners who might not know better to truly ruin your morning. I’m not mentioning user names here: If you know then you know.
To quote @the-illuminated-witch on her very good post about Cultural Appropriation:
“Cultural appropriation is a huge issue in modern witchcraft. When you have witches using white sage to “smudge” their altars, doing meditations to balance their chakras, and calling on Santa Muerte in spells, all without making any effort to understand the cultural roots of those practices, you have a serious problem.
When trying to understand cultural appropriation in witchcraft, it’s important to understand the difference between open and closed magic systems. An open system is one that is open to exchange with outsiders — both sharing ideas/practices and taking in new ones. In terms of religion, spirituality, and witchcraft, a completely open system has no restrictions on who can practice its teachings. A closed system is one that is isolated from outside influences — usually, there is some kind of restriction on who can practice within these systems.”
A counter-argument I’ve seen towards this when someone wants to appropiate indigenous deities and spirits is to use the “dead culture” argument: Extinct cultures are more eligible for use by modern people of all stirpes. It is a dead culture and dead religion. It would be one thing if some part of the culture or religion was still alive, being used by modern descendants, but the culture died out in its entirety and was replaced, right? They were all killed by colonization, they are ancient history now, right?
Example: “If white people are worshipping Egyptian deities now, then why can’t I worship [Insert Aborigen Deity Here]?”
To which I have two things to say:
Religious practices such as Vodou and Santería certainly aren’t dead, not that it keeps some Tumblr users from adding Erzuli as a “goddess” on their Baby Witch post, something that actual Vodou practitioners have warned against.
Indigenous cultures such as the Maya and the Mapuche aren’t dead, despite what the goverment of their countries might tell you. The Mapuche in particular have a rich culture and not one, but two witchcraft branches (The Machi and the Kalku/Calcu). Both are closed pagan practices that the local Catholic Church has continuously failed to assimilate and erase, though sadly not for lack of trying:
“The missionaries who followed the Spanish conquistadors to America incorrectly interpreted the Mapuche beliefs regarding both wekufes and gualichos. They used the word wekufe as a synonym for ideas of the devil, demons, and other evil or diabolical forces. This has caused misunderstanding of the original symbolism and has changed the idea of wekufe right up to the present day, even amongst the Mapuche people.”
For context, the Wefuke are the Calcu’s equivalent of the Familiar, as well as reportedly having more in common with the Fae than with demons anyway.
This and other indigenous religions are Closed because it is wrong for foreigners to just come and take elements from marginalized groups whom are still fighting to survive and that they weren’t born into. To just approppiate those things would be like spitting in their faces, treating them and their culture like a commodity, a shiny thing, a unique thing to be used like paint to spruce up your life or be special.
I know some of you are allergic to the word “Privilege”, but on this situation there really ain’t a better word to explain it. You weren’t born here, you don’t know what it is like, you are only able to see the struggle from an outsider’s point of view.
If a belief or practice is part of a closed system, outsiders should not take part in it. And with how many practices there are out there which are open for people of all races, there is really no excuse for you to do it.
If you have kept reading all this so far, you are probably wondering “Ok, but what does Colonization has to do with any of this?”
The answer? Everything.
With the general context of culture appropriation out of the way, let me tell you about why the whole “dead culture” argument rubs me the wrong way: Here in Venezuela, we have a goddess called Santa Maria de la Onza, or Maria Lionza for short, whom’s idol statue I have been using to illustrate this little rant. If you happen to know any Spanish, you might recognize the name as a derivative of Santa Maria, aka the Virgin Mary, and you are mostly correct: Her true indigenous name is theorized to have been Yara.
And I say “theorized” because it is a subject of hot debate whether she was really ever called that or not: Her original name, the name by which she was adored and worshipped by our ancestors, might have been forever lost to history.
That’s the legacy of colonization for you: Our cultures were stolen from us, and what they couldn’t erase they instead tried to assimilate. Our ancestors were enslaved, their lands and homes stolen, their artwork and literary works destroyed: The Maya and the Aztec Empire were rich in written works of all kinds, ranging from poetry to history records to medicine, and the Spaniards burned 99% of it, on what is probably one of the most tragic examples of book burning in history and one that people rarely ever talk about.
People couldn’t even worship their own gods or pass their knowledge of them to their children. That’s why Maria Lionza has such a Spanish Catholic-sounding name, and that’s why we can’t even be sure if Yara was her name or not: The Conquistadors couldn’t steal our goddess from us, so they stole her name instead. Catholics really have a thing with trying to assimilate indigenous goddesses with the Virgin Mary, as they tried to do the same with the Pachamama.
On witchy terms, I’d define Maria Lionza as both a deity and a land spirit: Most internet pages explaining her mention the Sorte mountain as her holy place, but it is more along the lines that she is the mountain.
You’d think that, with Venezuela and other Latinoamerican countries no longer being colonies, we’d be able to worship our own deities including her, right?
As far as a lot of Catholics seem to think and act, apparently we are not.
The Catholics here like to go out of their way to shame us, to call us “cultists”, to ostracize us, with a general call to “refrain from those pagan beliefs” because they go against the Catholic principles. Yes, the goddess with the Catholic-sounding name, a name she happens to share with a Catholic deity, apparently goes “against Catholic principles”. You really can’t make this shit up. (Linked article is in Spanish)
This is just an act of colonization out of many, of not wanting to stop until the culture they want to destroy is gone. Don’t believe for a second that this is really their God’s will or anything like that, they are just trying to finish what years of enslavement and murder couldn’t. They might not be actively killing us anymore, but they still want us dead.
So no, colonization is not some thing that has long passed and now only exist on history textbooks: It is still happening to this day. It is by treating it as old history that they can keep doing it, and it is by pushing the narrative that our indigenous cultures are “dead cultures” that they try to erase our heritage.
Because we are not dead. We are still here, we are alive, we have survived and we’ll keep on surviving, and our gods and goddesses are not yours to take.
¡Chao! 🐈
It you are looking to help, I recommend the Cajun Navy.
Post-Katrina when rescue efforts were in earnest, volunteers with boats became a critical part of the recovery efforts. Today they continue to organize local efforts and support people in the path of storms.
Stay safe, friends.
Send an ask stating your 3 top kinnies and we will match you with someone with compatible kinnies! Or state your kin and what are you looking for!
Examples:
Etc! This are examples at the top of my head, if you need me to explain something better, feel free to ask! Reblog so more people will see!
psa that unreality is a trigger just as much as anything else, and a hugely common trigger for those with dissociative disorders and psychotic-spectrum disorders in particular. it is a necessary tag that is often left off posts and it needs to become more normalised to include the “unreality tw” tag on these posts to prevent derealisation and delusion spirals, so that the internet is a bit safer and kinder for ppl with mental illness.
I am literally begging people to learn how to participate in fandom through a lens other than shipping
Anyways, once again for the people in the back, this was a post about how alienating it is to be aromantic in fandom spaces and how I would like it if my own, gen content was not constantly interpreted in ways that make me uncomfortable as a reasonable courtesy, not, like, an attack on your right to read fucking coffee shop AUs or whatever, and the fact that it has instead turned into something I am regularly harassed over is a better object lesson in why I don’t feel welcome in fandom than anything I could have said myself.
reblog if you:
what do I have to do to go to events where people are dressed nicely and there are plates of free cheese cubes
Go to the inaugurations of littlely known artists' exhibitions.
We are always begging for people to attend, there actually is the "hack" to invite your whole family but tell them to pretend they don't know you. People with money are more willing to buy your work if they think many people likes it, so your mere presence eating our cheese and canapes will be a great helps. Please bring whoever you want too.
Don’t mind if I do!
I will dress like an eccentric weirdo if that helps.
one time a pal of my pals was having a tough time selling their work in an art exhibit and called us up on the last day, ‘us’ being about 8 students who were Very hungry and also bored. We put on the nicest/artsiest clothes we had available (one dude had a legit fancy suit and put on some shades which were Bright Pink he looked like a movie star I swear) and rolled up to the show in pairs, separately. Fine Art Pal has some nice paintings! but nobody is really paying attention to them, so after getting some fancy cheese cubes in a manner that did not betray that we were actually a ravenous pack of starving students we casually wander around the show and then, fairly individually, drift to a stop by their work. Some of us even walked away, then came back a bit later ‘captivated’ by the art (it was actually really nice but recall we were all poor as shit and this was a help hustle folks). Our group’s interest naturally caught other folks, and eventually there was a small clump of about 15 people musing over this art, and within ten minutes the biggest piece had been snatched up by a shrewd investor. by the end of the exhibit every single piece was sold. It helped pay off the artist’s student debt and on that success they got into another exhibit! They’ve been doing well ever since.
So yes, please attend new artist shows, you get free cheese, get to look at nice art, and you can really help out people who deserve more attention.
PLEASE DO NOT THINK FOR EVEN A SECOND THAT YOUR VOICE WILL NOT HAVE AN IMPACT THIS IS LITERALLY THE BARE MINIMUM
I'm sorry for putting this in the BLM and stop Asian hate tag but in the last few days posts tagged with "Palestine" have not been showing up.
Sometimes people are reluctant to learn because they are already far behind. This is a very human insecurity that, in a more benign form, might manifest as an adult being self-conscious about learning to draw, play an instrument, etc, bc other people are at more advanced levels.
A more insidious form is boomers and conservative who refuse to learn new skills & social behaviors (or to unlearn negative ones they’ve been taught). While this is also very human, it is still a shitty shitty thing they get away with bc they have the privilege of being incredibly coddled.
To the first type of reluctant learner I’d like to say, please don’t let that insecurity stifle you! No matter where you begin, or where you stop, the process of learning is a miraculous one. You are 100% guaranteed to grow as a person just by engaging; technical progress is just one detail.
To the second type of reluctant learner: get the fuck over it. You are actively making the world a worse place.
i am an advocate for Big Dumb Man rights and i will not take this blatant erasure by the anime twitter users
they're in love
