A little more on cultural appropriation
I'm posting this here and nowhere else because this was the only pagan space I've seen this topic taken seriously and actually discussed and not dismissed out of hand. Anyone can TRY to post this elsewhere if they want. Good luck with that.http://www.
Sure, I detest people who commercialize the spiritual and religious. I do think that on average, they water things down to a saltless soup. But I cannot deny the occasions where I have met someone who read something atrocious like the Frosts, and come away better for it.
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If by "Political Correctness" you mean "having to bother actually listening to marginalized groups once in a while" then I do not agree with you. I don't see how treating marginalized communities and cultures as your own Pier One is serving any deity.
I see no value in telling someone who might have read a Lynn Andrews book and had a life changing moment that leads them to productive relations with the Divine, that they are basically wrong, and a thief.I'll refer you to this quote in the article ( ... )
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This. How many times have I seen the discussions about who gets to call themselves Wiccan, and how this or that group feels about it, and what are appropriate rituals and methods to become part of a Wiccan group, and what is or is not oathbound...
And yet, when First Nations groups ask for the same kind of respect for their cultural boundaries, it's completely unreasonable.
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What I have said that I am against calling out people who happened across a copy of something by Lynn Andrews, found something there that helped them along their spiritual path, and accusing them of being no different that Lynn Andrews.
And, no matter how loudly anyone here claims otherwise, that kind of thing, has and will continue to happen until clear boundaries are established. Information banishes a lot of sincere if ignorant action--but still won't deal with willful ignorance.
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1) Work for whom?
2) I disagree with your assertion. In the reading I've seen, most often the critique is leveled toward non-Native folks who presume to speak for, teach, and sell their spiritual practices. The boundaries I have seen, more often than not are, "If you want to learn our ways, come to us, live with us for a long time, get to know us, and then maybe you can learn something." So it's not so much that curiosity is unacceptable as I don't see their boundaries catering to my cultural notion that I can take a few workshops and consider myself more or less informed.
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2) The problem with reading is that it is the perspective of the writer, and not always the truth of what is happening on the ground. Some Native Americans welcome outsiders and see it as a way to assure survival of their practices(often because their youth has no interest in it). Others look upon all interest by whites with -great- contempt. Some others are selling it themselves because it makes them some fast cash.
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This. Ashe, even, if I may be permitted to borrow a phrase.
NeoPagans have spent a lot of time criticizing misrepresentation of our beliefs and rituals in mainstream media. One would think we'd have a little more empathy when the same thing is done to others.
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While Native Peoples have the right to be authorities on their religions and cultures, the extent of that authority is not absolute, and cannot be allowed so much sway that it interferes with legitimate spiritual experience and religious conscience. Dissing the person who reads a Lynn Andrews book does nothing to educate that person or give them meaningful parameters for their explorations of the Divine.
Lynn Andrews isn't on my reading list for students, and I don't recommend her works. I have no further responsibility here than to speak the truth about the problem as it exists and move on.
Addressing this point: What about the depletion of their energy, as they are forced to explain over and over to white people why we are not entitled to appropriate their culture?A) I think that the choice to 'explain over and over to white people' is a choice ( ... )
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Needless to say, we do not agree on this issue.
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1) Saying that what a writer does is wrong and hurtful is not an attack on those who happened to find a spiritual resonance in what that writer wrote. Stop defending "the person who reads a Lynn Andrews book". We're not talking about that theoretical, abstracted, innocently ignorant person. We're talking about an individual author who is stripmining cultures, for a profit, and ignoring the actual representatives of that culture when they object.
Consider, if it helps, that the individual who came to this realization might have been even better served by learning more about real practices, and/or might have been equally served by a book the author wrote without having to appropriate and misrepresent someone else's culture.
2) A) I think that the choice to 'explain over and over to white people' is a choice.Yes, I suppose. There is also a "choice" to defend yourself when you are struck, technically. You can also just keep taking ( ... )
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Then accept that there is no cohesive overarching system of Native American spirituality. Anything that still exists is tightly held within families, and is likely to never be shared with anyone outside the tribe. Whatever commonalities exist between indigenous tribal belief systems, they are not so many that you can write the stuff that Lynn Andrews has and claim to be authoritative on it.
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