First Post of 2023

Is Decolonizing Our Craft just for BIPOC?

I was having this conversation with my partner the other day. He told me that my regular Instagram posts, accompanied by the hashtag #DecolonizingOurCraft are becoming extremely popular. He sees them being shared by many other people on their stories and timelines, But he asks me: Elhoim, doesn't this make your followers who are not people of color uncomfortable?

My immediate response was:

Eh, no, because my posts are written without racial distinction. I don't write them focused only on people of color, one of my focuses when writing is, "how can this post be interpreted by a white person, by an average American heterosexual white man, or by a heterosexual white woman in England?"

  

Now, based on that answer, let me give you more context: Although I am not the best at expressing my ideas in English, which is not my first language, my intention is not to promote or idealize any racial battle but to promote a revolution of ideas in the community of witches, to make everyone think, regardless of skin color, language or country of origin, or passport color, and ask themselves "how colonized is my Craft?". Like that phrase, I like to use to close my posts: "Are you tapping into your own magic, or are you just following instructions?".

Because if you are only following instructions, you as a reader, as a sorcerer, what education and from whom are you following them? Based on what, are they revolutionary new ideas for change and unity, or are they just more rehashes of the same texts we've been reading for the past twenty years? That is, are those ideas and concepts of witchcraft that you follow written by, say, a white cis straight man who only wanted his thoughts to reach others like him? or were they are written by someone else, someone focused on exalting the so deserved yet so ignored role of women in the esoteric community, one focused on giving transgender, non-binary, and people of color, as well as people with disabilities, the position, and place to which they too are entitled within of our community?

Are these ideas and concepts of modern witchcraft just another product of colonization that seek to maintain the old patterns and "social standards" based on misogyny, homophobia, transphobia, racism, and classism. Or are these ideas of witchcraft a new product that leads you, as a practitioner, as a reader, as a sorcerer, as a human being, to exalt your role in the community and to take your place as one of us, for that matter, as sorcerers? from different continents, languages, and cultures, to fight together against those old patterns that are no longer useful to us, and that never really was.

#DecolonizingOurCraft is not just for people of color. It is an idea focused on empowering those who, for centuries, have been socially ignored and commercially abused and prohibited from practicing their own beliefs on their own lands. In contrast, these beliefs are promoted and sold in shops for tourists.

White people are colonized too, when they can study, honor, and work with the local spirits and deities of their own land, their ancestors, and their guardian spirits of the nearby forests, deserts, mountains, and lakes. Still, in Instead, they choose to take the popular direction contrary to their origins, not out of simple preference and genuine individual interest, but simply because it is the idea that the Hollywood movies and publishing houses or the fashion influencer are pushing, the white person, You are not acting as a colonizer, they don't know it, but they are also being colonized.

So, is it your form of witchcraft, a movement that seeks to empower the helpless, minorities, and marginalized people, or is it just one more tool that aims to uphold colonization standards while making money "promoting" minorities no further than social media and only for financial purposes?

© Elhoim Leafar, 2022, All Rights Reserved.

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