Now, let me be perfectly clear here.
Nothing, absolutely NOTHING can justify that you tell someone to kill themselves or “drop dead”. Especially when you DON’T KNOW the person in question, DON’T KNOW their story, or how they started their practice.
Voodoo/Vodou is a SEMI CLOSED PRACTICE. The Lwa DO care about lineage, sure they do, but they DO NOT CARE about the COLOR of your SKIN. They care about if you were INVITED, or NOT. If you WERE NOT, stay away from it, don’t play with it, don’t get close, and don’t think you’ll come out of it unscathed. If you WERE and you have consulted a MANBO or HOUNGAN, then YES YOU CAN PRACTICE VOODOO. If you have consulted a Manbo, or Houngan and they tell you NO, then NO YOU CANNOT PRACTICE VOODOO.
Here’s some background for ya: I was INVITED. I DID NOT seek it out on my own, and I DID NOT even BELIEVE in it to begin with. I was ASKED by a MANBO, if I had ever considered getting into Voodoo. She helped me start, she provided me with supplies, and a handwritten book of spells and knowledge, and offered guidance when I didn’t know where to go, or how to do anything. I NEVER DID ANYTHING without consulting the one who invited me.
This was FIVE YEARS AGO. I was invited FIVE YEARS AGO. FIVE YEARS. And I’m STILL HERE AND UNHARMED.
So don’t you dare come at me and tell me that I’ll suffer the same fate as the girl who summoned the wrong Lwa. Because no, she did not know what she was doing, or what she was getting into, and she should have stayed away from it. She WAS NOT invited, she DID NOT consult a Houngan or Manbo, and yes, it went wrong.
Don’t come at me saying that it’s “like wearing native clothing and claiming to be one” when you don’t know the back story. I live in DENMARK. I’m DANISH. There is NO VOODOO over here, and yet, it somehow found its way to me, without me actively seeking it out, because I wasn’t even interested. What you’re saying is basically like if I was telling someone outside of Scandinavia that they can’t believe in the Norse Mythology, because it’s CULTURAL and NOT FOR THEM. But guess what? We don’t do that, because people are allowed to believe in that, and follow the religion of Asatro.
As for people of color practicing our “pagan colonizer bullshit”? Plenty of people of color actually does practice that “bullshit” of ours. But I’m not one to tell them that they can’t, because guess what, they absolutely can.
Oh, and for that one person who straight up told me to “drop dead”? Something is seriously wrong with you. Get help. It’s never, under no circumstances, valid to tell a stranger that, when you know absolutely nothing about them. Disgusting.
Rant over.
