Colonizing Spirituality
Religion and spirituality are aspects of BIPOC culture that persist both inside and outside of the patriarchy. The umbrella of spiritual guidance and who and where we take our prayer to is a conversation that takes place all over the world, through and within pre-neocolonial historical context and the myriads of 2021. Religion has always been a difficult thing for myself to navigate. Growing up in a Christian school and in a Christian church and then having visited the Catholic and black churches of my friends, having read Mitch Albom's Christian-antics and also Yann Martels Life of Pi, religion has always been a foundational element of my life. What I refuse to accept is that religion is white.
The digital space has made it easier for people to look into spirituality as something abstract, something human and something chargeable and renewable. It has made the brujerias and the vodous of spiritual practice accessible, but it also aids in the erasure of BIPOC culture and the foundational message that BIPOC practitioners have on spiritual practice.
Hatian-American author of young adult fiction, Ibi Zoboi came to the U.S amidst operating the cultural division between her rooted ancestry in Haiti and the identity she was sculpting in Detroit. She often speaks about the stress that comes with learning of your history and community in a society that compartmentalizes people of color into categories and sub-groups. She also talks about how American media has done a great job at depicting Haitian vodou in a negative light where it is actually a “patchwork quilt laid across Latin America… made up of Candomble in Brazil, Palo in Cuba, Santeria or Lukumi in Puerto Rico, and Vodou in Haiti”. It is so important to recognize that folklore and spirituality are founded in communities of color and especially in Indigenous islands and it is not an aesthetic or a costume.
There is a reason why voudoists are also referred to as Roman catholics, and there is a reason why to people of color the wave of spiritual tik tok and social media is not something unfolding, but something expanding. Vodou and spirituality were entwined into Christian narratives so they could live inside western religion without assimilation. From the practice of manifestation being translated into prayer to personifying objects and giving to them power and energy. The conversations spiritual people of color have with our deities and the universal understanding we have about power and energy are spoken in every language but remain praised when in English.
Spirituality isn’t only a bedrock of global religions and a foundation to culture and faith. It is also a way for different marginalized people to recover their relationship with pre(anti)-colonial history and ancestry. Spirituality can be mobilized to open up safe spaces beyond the bounds of western imperialism and neocolonial regimes and can deliver political emancipatory goals.
When white people take up the digital space to open up the spiritual conversation and when they partake in the practice it is painful for some of us to see the vitality of our spirituality and our communities being revamped into an aesthetic. Modern day colonialism exists inside white lines of the social media outbreak. It is hidden in influencers and in trends and it is the contributor to modern day ethnic erasure.
There is a component in critical race theory that white supremacy prevails in the 21st century when white people feel that their position in the social hierarchy is threatened and they compromise for it by imperializing aspects of minority culture through the reclamation of it, such as romanticizing spirituality and transforming styles that are rooted in indigenous cultures into consumable aesthetics.
It is imperative to recognize that while centering yourself as a person and aligning your soul with the earth is good and healthy, it is also important that you recognize that it was the ancestors of minority women and men that built the foundation for the spiritual guides that exist on the digital space today and by practicing witchcraft without education, you perpetuate modern day colonialism.