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Heathen problems
Column: On Inclusive Heathenry
“Do
you believe that Ásatrú and Heathenry are world-affirming religions? If
so, let’s acknowledge that bigotry, injustice, and suffering are real
forces of darkness in this world that can’t be prayed away.Do
you believe that Ásatrú and Heathenry should be inclusive? If so, let’s
put in the hard work to truly make them so. If your Heathen community,
organization, or event is made up entirely of white people, contact the
Heathen groups that include practitioners who come from Jewish, African,
Hispanic, Latin American, and all other backgrounds, and ask them for
advice on building a more inclusive religious community of your own.”
An angry rhetorical question:
No, but really–what’s up with all the gender essentialism in paganism and how the hell do we get rid of it?
Okay but real talk.
I’m really exhausted with people who claim NOT to be Nazis, protecting Nazis, being so afraid of Hate groups they they are letting them actively control their words and thoughts.
This is getting crazy! If you are too afraid to stand up for Inclusive spaces that are not going to tolerate the AFA or Nazis, then the fear is already present. It’s already controlling your community. DO SOMETHING. Other than try to sabotage any orgs or kindreds or people who ARE standing up.
When you protect Nazis by protecting the secrets, the status quo, and actively try to shut up dissenters, you have now become part of the systematic oppression. You are now working for them. You’re doing what you’ve been conditioned to do.
Break the Silence. Break the Cycle. You can do it. I believe in all of you. And I’ll stand with you..
PS. I even believe you’re brave enough to reblog this post.
If the creation of spaces free from white supremacy, homophobia, transphobia or fascism offends you… then maybe you’re the problem.
This post might make people angry. I’m not sorry. If it does, feel free to ignore it or unfollow me or whatever you feel you have to do that isn’t coming into my comments and yelling at me about it.
Being a marginalized person is hard. It can suck. So many of us just want community, people we can relate to, people who love us no matter what. Some of us find that in very small subsections of communities not normally known for being inclusive. One of the big struggles in those cases is seeing people in those wider communities defending attitudes and behaviors that are actively harmful to those of us in the minority. People who hold the power in whatever community—the people who are the majority, who are generally (yeah, I’ll say it) white/straight/cis (though not always)—don’t understand how harmful words can be.
Defending a racist who says “well, this is my belief and it doesn’t affect you, despite being in the group I’m bigoted against” declares to us that you value bigotry and hatred over creating a place and community where anyone truly can belong. Hiding behind the shield of opinion and “if you don’t like it, leave” eliminates any potential of growth or understanding, and often continues to marginalize and splinter any sort of camaraderie we might have started to build.
When I hear someone saying bigotry is a “slight difference of beliefs” and fighting it is “liberal political nonsense,” I hear “you aren’t important and we don’t want you.” I see people who claim to be welcoming making homophobic and/or transphobic comments and failing to see how those are harmful. I see people arguing over why someone would want to be part of a group that doesn’t believe or behave in the same way without realizing that sometimes THERE IS NO OTHER PLACE FOR US. Sometimes this community, whatever it may be in this context, is the ONLY place to find people who are remotely similar to us—who worship the same gods, write the same sort of fiction, practice the same martial art, enjoy the same video games, whatever. Sometimes we have no choice but to dip our toes into the swamp if we want to find some semblance of community.
And, unfortunately, that comes with also having to deal with bigotry slung in our faces in the name of “understanding and supporting everyone” or “giving everyone a chance to speak.” Which, don’t get me wrong, I think is important—as long as that speech isn’t hate-speech, abusive, or inciting violence (this can be far more subtle than people think, but that’s a tirade for another day). The problem is when that’s used as an excuse to further empower voices that are already in power and espousing problematic viewpoints and, in return, used to silence voices that have a differing point of view or come from a place of marginalization.
That’s what I’m seeing a lot of recently, and my conflict-avoidant ass is coming to a tipping point on it. I can no longer sit still and quiet and let myself be trod over. I can no longer be part of a community or society that defends literal Nazis instead of ensuring trans teens don’t kill themselves. I can no longer play nice with people who boil down my existence and my burning desire to help other marginalized people feel safe to “a difference in opinions.”
I am here. I am marginalized in several ways. Most of my friends are, too. If you aren’t dedicated to making a space where I can exist without fearing I’ll be pushed aside, mocked, ignored, hurt, or even worse on a regular basis—you are not my friend and I simply can’t believe you truly care about me. If you can work toward supporting me and helping create those safe spaces by helping me and others put up those boundaries against bigotry and allowing folks to be themselves, you’re welcome to stay.
Call me a snowflake all you’d like. I can pretty much guarantee you’d hit this point eventually if you were in my shoes, too. There’s only so much hatred human beings can handle—and we certainly shouldn’t have to endure it from communities where we’re supposed to be able to feel safe.
Consider: even if the elder Heathens were as xenophobic, sexist, homophobic,m and transphobic as bigots would have you believe (and they weren’t or I don’t honestly think I’d want to worship those deities). Here is a simple fact:
We aren’t living in the tenth century or earlier anymore.
Welcome to the 21st century, where a lot has changed and the rules as they applied back then don’t matter. You heard me, none of it matters! As a family of loosely connected traditions, we can keep up and get with the times, or die.
Personally I feel like we would be better off if some branches of our tree withered and died but I’m not the Asapope. I’m not even the Vanapope. I’m just doing my own thing and fuck everyone else.
btw almost every single thing pagans credit with “the reason we aren’t respected as a religion” is wrong. it’s not community infighting, or woo magic users, or pop culture pagans. it’s the fact we live in a culturally Christian society that teaches all other religions are “primitive and backwards”, and considers similarity and proximity to Christianity to be the basis by which other religions are evaluated as “respectable” or “superstitious nonsense”. if you think that you would get “respect” from mainstream Christians and secular people because you’re a strict recon who never argues with other pagans or does anything considered “weird” within paganism, you’re fooling yourself.
i wonder why it is that so many people are so very concerned with getting “respect” from mainstream religious groups and the secular world, while you can’t be bothered to treat other polytheists and pagans with respect as soon as they in any way challenge your personal comfort, or jeapordize your perceived “respectability” by association.
A question for Lokeans
As I revive my Wiccan practice I’ll be asking questions that are stressing me out. So my first one is this:
I started a relationship with Loki and I felt really happy and excited. Doing some reading, though, I worry that I could get hurt if the relationship deepens, as Loki is often depicted as a betrayer and an adversary. I know that could be Christian influence but I thought I should ask:
Lokeans, has Loki ever hurt or betrayed you? What is your experience with him?
Hiya! For starters, you might want to check out the nokean tag over at the @lokeanwelcomingcommittee. Much of Loki’s reputation among Heathen’s has to do with him being viewed as the Norse equivalent of the Christian Satan, when in reality, the Norse didn’t really have the same notion of absolute good and evil. And a lot of the rest of it has to do with racism and homophobia.
So no. Loki’s not evil. But that’s not the same as never hurting you. Frankly, anyone you have a relationship with, god or human, is going to hurt you eventually, even if they have only the best intentions, because that is the nature of any two complex, flawed beings interacting long term.
With deity relationships in particular, one metaphor that really speaks to me is that of surgery. Cutting you open, on its own, is harmful. But sometimes it needs to happen before you can heal. Loki (and honestly, any other deity) will tear stuff down so you can rebuild it better down the road if they think that’s necessary. And even if it is necessary, it can be incredibly painful and frightening at the time. Anyone who tells you their spiritual path is all joy and light is just trying to sell you something.
But the pain of growth is worth it. Just like relationships are worth it. I think this quote by C.S. Lewis sums it up really well:
“To love at all is to be vulnerable. Love anything
and your heart will be wrung and possibly broken. If you want to make
sure of keeping it intact you must give it to no one, not even an
animal. Wrap it carefully round with hobbies and little luxuries; avoid
all entanglements. Lock it up safe in the casket or coffin of your
selfishness. But in that casket, safe, dark, motionless, airless, it
will change. It will not be broken; it will become unbreakable,
impenetrable, irredeemable. To love is to be vulnerable.”
“The amount of magicians using magic of the gender not specified to a particular form of magic implies that Norse gender roles were far less strict than modern scholars hold them to have been; in general, the permeability of Norse gender roles does not seem restrained to magic in the Poetic Edda.
[…]
As this text [Poetic Edda] was produced by the Norse themselves, who considered these poems and their tropes worthy of being recorded, this permeability might be taken as symptomatic of the culture as a whole, particularly with cases where women performed legally as men, Norse graves with ‘men buried in women’s clothes’ and with women’s jewellery and graves with women buried with ‘male’ grave goods and weapons; the scattered evidence, taken as a whole, suggests that gender in Norse society was not as rigid a category as it is seen in the modern western world. As Lauritsen and Hansen note,
‘The danger of archaeological sex determination is that the archaeologist risks confusing the beliefs and practices of his or her own culture with those of the prehistoric culture in question. Most people’s ideas about what is natural for humans to think and do, or not, are products of enculturation into a specific culture at a particular time. Our ideas and the practices of our own society are not universal or even inherent in human nature.’ This danger is present in historical analysis, as well, as seen in the misleading binarist theories that paint Norse magic as mostly feminine and Norse gender roles as unbending. By re-examining the primary sources – textual and otherwise – a much more accurate, though less easily categorized, depiction of Norse magic and gender appears, challenging the limited and binarist assumptions that project modern Western gender norms onto the past in general and Norse magic in particular”— Magic beyond the binary: magic and gender in the Poetic Edda
Wandering Jotun / Ignis-Sassentia 