Blessed Are the Ignorant (or, a funny thing happened in a coffeeshop)

[afrosaxon]

Folks, the VooDoo Tarot has the word VooDoo in it for a reason.

Yes, because it is based on the lwa (spirits) of the vodoun pantheon, and the practices in which they are invoked.

afrosaxon, I'm not saying the waiter was 100% right, however nor are you. Perhaps you weren't performing a VooDoo ritual, but the waiter was pretty intuitive to ask if you were doing VooDoo

I've got to say I think the waiter had an intuitive flash! I don't think he realized it but I think he had a psychic flash!

Eh...can't quite smoke with y'all on this, Satori and Franniee. He was asking more based on the ritual he thought I was using (e.g., shuffling and card layouts). It's not like I was chanting or drawing veves on the ground. LOL I doubt that if I were using the Osho Zen, he would ask, "Are you practicing Buddhism?"

especially considering you had a VooDoo Tarot in your hands. I think he deserves some credit here.

The synchronicity of his question and my deck usage is what actually led me to explore his inquiry further, because I wondered if he had a psychic flash...and my explorations uncovered an unknowing that he thought voodoo=tarot/laying out cards.

What I haven't really wanted to say--but perhaps I should--is that for those who may not have figured it out by my user name, I am black. And though I don't like playing the race card, I am in the South and being here, I had a knee-jerk reaction to the assumption that I'm using voodoo ('cause of course, that's what black folks do on the downlow, since many of our ancestors came from Africa and all ). [THAT WAS SARCASM, FOLKS...DON'T GET YOUR KNICKERS FURTHER IN A TWIST]. Especially since most of us are actually of a Protestant religion (I was raised Baptist).

Would he have asked me that if I were not black? I may never know.

Granted, there are non-black vodoun practitioners (indeed, Sallie Glassman, co-creator of the NOVT, is white and a mambo), but they are relatively few and far between. And the odds are that in New Orleans, the person(s) that he saw dealing the cards were of color.

Did you offer to do a reading for them?

Of course. Next week. With the NOVT.

T.

 

[Baroli]

What I haven't really wanted to say--but perhaps I should--is that for those who may not have figured it out by my user name, I am black. And though I don't like playing the race card, I am in the South and being here, I had a knee-jerk reaction to the assumption that I'm using voodoo ('cause of course, that's what black folks do on the downlow, since many of our ancestors came from Africa and all ). [THAT WAS SARCASM, FOLKS...DON'T GET YOUR KNICKERS FURTHER IN A TWIST]. Especially since most of us are actually of a Protestant religion (I was raised Baptist).

Would he have asked me that if I were not black? I may never know.

WAIT WAIT!! You're playing THAT card???? The RACE card???


Whoa!!!


I get exactly what you are saying afrosaxon and I understand the knee-jerk reaction.

 

[stella01904]

It's not just in Texas. A lot of people from the southern US refer to folk magic, especially African-American folk magic, as voodoo or hoodoo. This isn't ignorance, these are the traditional regional names for traditional regional folk practices. Zora Neale Hurston, who wrote about this a lot, said that voodoo is mostly the white folks' word, and hoodoo the black folks' word.

http://www.luckymojo.com/hoodoohistory.html

"This oddity of locution -- black people calling their magical practice hoodoo and white people calling it Voodoo, as if by doing so they could convince black folks that rootwork is a West African or Haitian religion -- is clearly noted in Zora Neale Hurston's important book on the subject, "Mules and Men," published in 1935. Hurston was an African American folklorist with a fine ear for dialect who also wrote a book on Haitian Voodoo ("Tell My Horse"), so she spoke with authority when she referred to her subject as "Hoodoo, or Voodoo, as it is pronounced by the whites." Hurston indicated with one sly double-bodied verb that it is both a white error of dialect to "pronounce" the word hoodoo as Voodoo, and it is also a white error of academic authority to "pronounce" the practice of hoodoo to BE Voodoo.

Now, it could be argued that Hurston was from Florida and that she preferred the word hoodoo to Voodoo, even though the latter was the more common term in New Orleans -- but such an idea can definitely be countered by referring to an interview that Ferdinand "Jelly Roll" Morton, an African American Creole native of New Orleans (and a famous jazz musician in his own right) gave to the folklorist and musicologist Alan Lomax of the Library of Congress in 1941: Morton, who was quite conscious of the recording of the interview and its historical importance, went out of his way to explain many local idioms and turns of speech to Lomax, who was a white man basically ignorant of such matters. When Morton began describing to Lomax why a multiple murderer in New Orleans was never prosecuted, he interrupted the flow of his own words to explain his terminology to Lomax. He said:

"I guess the reason why he got out of trouble so much, it was often known that Madame Papaloos was the lady that ... always backed him when he got in trouble. I don't mean with funds, or anything like that. Money wasn't really in it. As I understand, she was a hoodoo woman. Some ... some say voodoo. But we ... it's known in New Orleans as hoodoo."

Reading between the lines in Morton's polite and erudite speech pattern, it is easy to recognize that the "some ... some" are white people -- but he did not wish to offend Lomax by naming them as such -- and that the "we" are the black Creoles of New Orleans. (A lengthy extract from the interview is at the Southern Spirits web page titled "'Jelly Roll' Morton on Hoodoo in New Orleans."

My experience parallels that of Hyatt, Hurston, and Morton, for i too have found that in most cases where the words "hoodoo" and "Voodoo" appear to be used interchangeably, further research discloses that a rural black speaker used the word "hoodoo" and a white or urban black author, editor, or indexer either mistranscribed the word as "Voodoo" or erroneously "explained" the speaker's meaning by claiming that hoodoo actually is Voodoo. Examples of this error are too numerous to mention; they can be found everywhere in printed folklore studies and on the world wide web. For example: the book "Voodoo and Hoodoo" by Jim Haskins is not about Voodoo; it is about hoodoo -- and Haskins, who is black, knows it, too, and said so in the body of the text; but still he allowed his publisher to perpetuate the error in his title.
African American folk magic is called "hoodoo." "Voodoo" is a religion.
Zora Neale Hurston, who wrote about this a lot, said that voodoo is mostly the white folks' word, and hoodoo the black folks' word."

I'm not sure the question was much more than ordinary conversation. A waitress, seeing me cross myself before I eat in a diner might ask, "Are you a Catholic?" I'm not, I'm Episcopalian. But I wouldn't think the question odd at all. On the other hand, since living here in the North, I've found there are a lot of people who find being asked about their religion invasive and offensive.

It is, if you are asked by someone you don't know, or barely know. People are very nosy where I live, too. People I only know by sight often ask about my religion, where I live, if I am working today, sometimes they try to grab my arm to get a closer look at a tattoo or a bracelet. It's NOT odd, in any sense of being unusual. It IS rude and ignorant.

 

[GenoviaJ]

Well I am black -dark black African American - a creole and native of Louisiana and I wouldn't think it odd for someone to ask me that question based on my race. Especially since most blacks (souther black american's) steer away from anything non-Christian, especially in public. All I am saying is- being a native of that culture and a reader of tarot, not only do I understand the cultural aspects and the mystery surrounding "roots" or "working of roots" as we call them- and I wouldn't have thought of the questioner as ignorant- or taken offense by it, I would simply understood he was curious about my culture.
~~~~~

While he may not have thought you practicing buddhism with the Osho zen, unless you had your head wrapped and were dressed in this style of clothing, certainly if you were the shade of American Indian and performing what appeared to be a ritual- he may have asked a similar question, based on his experience. What ever connected the two are "his" experience with it, not his ignorance of it, and our ideas of what his experience should or should not be should not factor into a judgment call, especially concerning such a private and guarded practice and culture, full of secrets and mystery.

---------
Doing a performance or reading in a public place changes a lot of things concerning privacy and idealisms and being open about what we are doing. The fact is this is were he works, its a public place and he becomes part of your audience and support system. I would have welcomed his experience- nd conversation. Maybe it was a psychic flash or connection to a past lifetime, flash or the energy of the cards that made him connect the two and not the name of the cards or the color of your skin.
In the least it was a meaningful coincidence and I have found that as subtle as these random things sometimes are, they pack a powerful punch in terms of our goals and spiritual growth in life. They tend to present gateways of opportunities to grow along our journey, when we take the clues and hints they provide us and open ourselves up for a new understanding of the world we live in.

 

[afrosaxon]

Genovia,

Our reactions to such a comment are obviously different, and I'm definitely not going to turn this into a "blacker than thou" issue, because that's not the point.

You would not have taken offense. I did. I considered him ignorant (in the basic definition of the word, not the normally negative connotation), based on my perspective as a black woman practicing tarot in the non-New Orleans South. You don't, as a black woman of Creole descent in the New Orleans South.

Thank you for your comments and perspective.

T.

Well I am black -dark black African American - a creole and native of Louisiana and I wouldn't think it odd for someone to ask me that question based on my race. Especially since most blacks (souther black american's) steer away from anything non-Christian, especially in public. All I am saying is- being a native of that culture and a reader of tarot, not only do I understand the cultural aspects and the mystery surrounding "roots" or "working of roots" as we call them- and I wouldn't have thought of the questioner as ignorant- or taken offense by it, I would simply understood he was curious about my culture.
~~~~~

While he may not have thought you practicing buddhism with the Osho zen, unless you had your head wrapped and were dressed in this style of clothing, certainly if you were the shade of American Indian and performing what appeared to be a ritual- he may have asked a similar question, based on his experience. What ever connected the two are "his" experience with it, not his ignorance of it, and our ideas of what his experience should or should not be should not factor into a judgment call, especially concerning such a private and guarded practice and culture, full of secrets and mystery.

---------
Doing a performance or reading in a public place changes a lot of things concerning privacy and idealisms and being open about what we are doing. The fact is this is were he works, its a public place and he becomes part of your audience and support system. I would have welcomed his experience- nd conversation. Maybe it was a psychic flash or connection to a past lifetime, flash or the energy of the cards that made him connect the two and not the name of the cards or the color of your skin.
In the least it was a meaningful coincidence and I have found that as subtle as these random things sometimes are, they pack a powerful punch in terms of our goals and spiritual growth in life. They tend to present gateways of opportunities to grow along our journey, when we take the clues and hints they provide us and open ourselves up for a new understanding of the world we live in.

 

[memries]

Well I am white and live in Canada. People are so darn stuffy here I would not take out cards anyway in a public place. We are very mixed here in Nationalities and Religions. To tell the truth I cannot tell what some people are anyway. If they are nice to me I am to them. If they are not I go my own way that's all.

Someone you think might be from Mexico can be from Tibet or might be Innuit ! I would never ask or notice anyway unless they are dressed unusually.
For a bit we had a lady walking down the street in a Burhka taking her children to school. Think she just wears usual now and no one even notices.

I think the employee was just interested. Maybe he did not phrase it very well that's all.

Wish I had the guts to play my cards on the table in a restaurant !

 

[Cactus]

Sometimes you never can tell what people mean but at least you don't get someone like that often. Or do you?

It's frustrating and I'd dwell on what someone would say - well, I used to dwell on it. Then I'd analyze what I said in response. Now I don't bother!

 

[avalonian]

Let's see...how does that saying go?

'Tis best to keep mouth closed and leave room for doubt, than open mouth and remove all doubt.

"Tis better to remain silent and be thought a fool than to speak and remove all doubt".

Abraham Lincoln.

 

[shaveling]

afrosaxon,
I'm not really sure where Cassandra Wilson's lyrics fit in with all this. But God bless your High John and the mud on your shoes, as well. One of my personal mottoes is "Some days all you can do is rub a little more van-van on your high john and hope for the best."

 

[sharpchick]

Afrosaxon, I get it.

And I'm not from Texas, I'm from Arkansas, which is geographically very close.

It's kind of like when I was picking through some of my stones for the ones I wanted to use to construct a miniature version of a medicine wheel for my indoor altar.

My younger sister, who prides herself on being a know-it-all Christian and general pain in the azz, asked me what I was doing. I told her.

She said, "Oh for some of that voodoo crap you do."