#whitepassing

I was always taught across Africana traditions and hoodoo that having black ancestry is a fundamental part of the practice. It’s in your blood and bones, it’s in your DNA, it’s how you channel and tap into your wisdom and the juju of an unbroken lineage of ancestors going back through slavery and back across the waters to West Africa where these traditions have their origins. Beyond just cultural appropriation (which matters too on a different level), there’s also that blood ancestry aspect that to me is a tradition-level inherent reason why non-black folks (people without any African descent) simply can’t practice hoodoo no matter how hard they may try to.

You said you feel like you can’t practice because of your skin color, but I have white skin too. The difference is that I’m white passing, not white. We may both appear white to most people, but when I take a DNA test, my African ancestry sure does show up next to my European ancestry. I am biracial. We both have black family - and they are your family as much as mine is my family - but you are still white because that doesn’t change your race. Just like a black kid adopted into a white family would still be black - not white.

To me where this gets extra confusing is that since they are your family and they chose to teach you… I mean those are your family traditions too, and while you’re still white, having a black family means that black culture may be a part of your culture too. This is where this question gets into the transracial adoption territory beyond my experience and knowledge. You probably have a special and unique relationship to black culture that other white people don’t have because of your transracial adoption, and that’s an amazing thing. I respect that and it was your grandma’s choice to teach you hoodoo. 

No one can take those experiences or that bond away from you with your family and with your upbringing. I just urge you to understand the privileges you have as a white person. Many of those privileges overlap with the ones I have as a white passing person. Our white skin and appearance mean we are favored by society over our families in soooooo many ways more than we can fathom or imagine even when we try to grasp it. We don’t have to be afraid of cops in the same way as our family members do. I don’t know what it’s like to actually be adopted, but people have assumed that I am more often than not. 

We have many of the same privileges and possibly even some of the same challenges as white-looking people in black families, but racially we are not the same. You also have different challenges than me a person who was transracially adopted, but you have different privileges as a white person too. I think these differences are extremely important for you to understand when looking at how you engage with black culture. It’s a part of your family and your cultural upbringing, but it’s not your race, which is something that goes beyond skin color when it comes to being black in the US.

From a young age, my mom made sure I knew that I was biracial black, and that has been a part of my heritage and life experience in terms of who I am knowing that my white passing privileges can be stripped away any time because I’m not actually white. I proudly choose to identify as biracial even when it means people laughing at me not believing it because it’s not something I can change - it’s who I was born as.

You were born the way you are too, and like I’ve said you also have your own and unique experiences because of that. And unfortunately, you’re in very very difficult to navigate waters as a result of it all. I wish I could tell you the best way to navigate that and where are the “lines” are, but truthfully I don’t know because I don’t know exactly what or how your grandma taught you or what her thoughts are on the whole ancestry aspect. I don’t fully know how cultural appropriation applies in the complex situation of transracial adoption. That’s why I put so much emphasis just now on the race piece - the one thing I do know, is that regardless of everything else, you are white. 

So while I may not be able to give exact advice about what to do or what not to do, I strongly urge you to remember that and understand that your identity and life experience, as well as your connection to these traditions and culture, is fundamentally different than it is for us black folks. You don’t have a birthright to it in the way that we do, yet it is a part of your family traditions and culture. I don’t know what that means for you, but I do think that it’s essential for you to try to understand as much as possible as you figure out what to do going forward.