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Subscribe to this list via RSS Blog posts tagged in Racism
Pagan News Beagle Fiery Tuesday Feb 24

On Fiery Tuesdays the Pagan News Beagle highlights stories of activism as they affect Pagan culture. Today we highlight the recent Pantheacon conference, and on reactions to a specific incident that highlighted ongoing concerns over racism in our communities.

This year's Pantheacon festival had many wonderful events (covered by many PaganSquare bloggers) and one very notable controversy. This blog post describes the core of the controversy, (and is also the location of an apology by the authors of the document in question.)

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Posted by on in Paths Blogs

b2ap3_thumbnail_nametag.jpgMy suitcase still isn't unpacked. My brain isn't, either. Several other writers have already blogged about this past weekend's Pantheacon and eloquently so. I needed more time. 

First of all, it was great. I spent most of my party time in the Black Rose Witchcraft Suite (thank you Devin Hunter for the laughs at night and the headaches in the mornings) and my worky-work time attending rituals, classes on rituals, and discussions on issues surrounding racism in our beloved community. I met new friends in those rituals (#heygwion) and even sat on a panel, myself! "Turning the Wheel: Nurturing Young Leaders and Embracing Change" led by Thorn Coyle. It was more than an honor to be up there with such incredible minds. 

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Posted by on in Culture Blogs

I’m still trying to wrap my head around Pantheacon 2015. It was a very different con for me, a strange mix of ups and downs. It started off incredibly when I got to watch my wife present for the first time. She got wonderful feedback on her work as a hypnotherapist. Throughout the con, and even after the con, a number of people expressed their appreciation for her session and for the work she did for them.

I got to help Shauna Aura Knight in her ritual facilitation workshop. By simply repeating a chant about Air as three others chanted the other elements, we raised some pretty amazing energy in a small space. I got a tiny glimpse of her ritual skills, and it left me wanting more. Much more.

I was the bad kid in a class on knot-tying, that poor student who wants to learn but needs the individualized attention from a teacher too busy to give it. There was important lesson there for this high school teacher to learn. My fellow witches and I sent protection to the witches of future at Devin Hunter’s Rite of Grand Convergence, and I worked to restore order in the world with Christopher Penczak. I met with men about men’s issues, talked with David Salisbury about establishing a Pagan lobbying day in the nation’s capital, and had the opportunity to meet Krampus, who was taking a break from his holiday season duties.

Krampus

Those were the ups, but then there were the downs.

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Recent Comments - Show all comments
  • Tim Titus
    Tim Titus says #
    Thanks Piper. I agree with your thoughts. I felt that Jonathan Korman's letter was well done and the response from the PantyCon
  • Piper
    Piper says #
    Sorry I missed this year, I enjoyed last year alot, The POC suite was full of great people, and there were more offerings along my

Posted by on in Culture Blogs

I just wrote a whole post on Ferguson, white privilege, and racism. It was all about overt and institutionalized racism and the difficulty of seeing your own privilege. It recognized my own privilege as a white man and asked people of color to have patience with those of us who have a melanin deficiency as we try to figure out how to handle these successive rounds of evidence of systemic racism in society. Then I threw it out.

It was way too “Great White Father.” I was speaking to the white community, not the African-American community, but it still smacked of power and privilege. I can afford to sit down and think about these things because they don’t affect me. That’s privilege.

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Recent Comments - Show all comments
  • Tim Titus
    Tim Titus says #
    I'm with you, and all I suggest is that we talk with rather than over each other.
  • Linda Pardue
    Linda Pardue says #
    The thing is while I can't completely empathize with the current climate's situation - I CAN empathize with the fear for their chi
  • Lizann Bassham
    Lizann Bassham says #
    Love your pentacle of activism!
Source: Wikimedia Commons.
Police officers using tear gas during the first wave of the Ferguson unrest. Source: Wikimedia Commons.

I was twenty-one when I took a Greyhound across the country into Maine.  It was a long and brutal trip, and I was travelling from BC; so I was on the bus for five full days.  Needless to say, on Day Five, when I went through Niagara Falls and Buffalo, NY, I was exhausted and hoping to get some sleep, so I pretended that I was sleeping and guarded the seat beside me jealously.

But the bus was really crowded; packed like sardines.  And so eventually, because I present like a tough cookie but am actually a marshmallow, I invited a young man to sit beside me.

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  • Carol P. Christ
    Carol P. Christ says #
    I could not agree with you more. We have to be taught to hate and fear and no one wants to kill others, until taught. Our white ex
  • Sable Aradia
    Sable Aradia says #
    It sure would be nice if we could remember how not to want to kill each other. Thanks for your thoughts!
  • Joan Stringer
    Joan Stringer says #
    Sadly it is becoming apparent that violence is an increasing part of our lives in North America. Even if you haven't been personal
  • Sable Aradia
    Sable Aradia says #
    When I was six, I used to take off on my bike to the beach in the summer with a couple of bucks in my pocket to buy lunch at the c

Posted by on in Culture Blogs
Staying awake - because of Ferguson

Helicopters roaring overhead. Spotlights sweeping over me. Sirens. Bullhorns. Angry chanting. Drums. Fireworks. A trash can on fire. Lines of cops in riot gear. Suddenly the crowd turns and I am in the front with hundreds of people behind me. To the freeway, they shout. A guy next to me sprays the word POWER on the freeway bridge. More cops in riot gear. Helicopters flying low. People running toward the freeway ramp. Cop cars speeding through the crowd; protesters jumping out of the way.

 

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  • Jeanine Byers
    Jeanine Byers says #
    Thank you!
Cultural Appropriation or Creative Expession?

I opened up my Facebook account today and was greeted by a long discussion focusing on cultural appropriation, vis-a-vis belly dancing. It appeared to be based on a Salon article titled "Why I can't stand white belly dancers."

The first thing that struck me was the confrontational nature of the headline: It wasn't belly dancing performed by white people that the author couldn't stand, it was the belly dancers themselves. If this doesn't put people on the defensive, I don't know what will. Then again, it's part of the inflammatory nature of online "journalism" these days, which uses hot-button language to increase the number of hits. (Full disclosure: I'm white, but I'm no belly dancer, and belly dancing isn't something I go out of my way to watch.)

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Recent Comments - Show all comments
  • valkyr dragonborn
    valkyr dragonborn says #
    as an amateur American "bellydancer" this article both astounds and disgusts me- noted professional Middle Eastern artists, musici
  • Literata
    Literata says #
    I appreciate your points about the impossibility of achieving purity. Like Carol Christ, though, I can also see the author's persp
  • Stifyn Emrys
    Stifyn Emrys says #
    I was intentionally careful with my wording on the parody point: I wrote that it was "one" key question rather than "the" key ques
  • Ruth Pace
    Ruth Pace says #
    lol - yeah, I too was wondering about that article and commented on it. I reminded the author that the dance (and the Arabic word
  • aought
    aought says #
    Randa Jarrar is also forgetting that "white" people were originally from Africa and migrated to the north, losing their skin pigme

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