Hello, friends.
I’ve been struggling this week, as I’m sure we all have.
On Wednesday evening, the Uncoven gathered via Zoom with any partners who wished to join us. We drank wine and yelled and flailed and eventually, we laughed and talked about what we will all do when we are together. It was balm to all of our aching souls, and I’m so glad we did it. I don’t think any of us left the call feeling less concerned, but at least we knew we were all in the same headspace.
Get you a group text, is what I’m saying. Coven, Uncoven, or simply friends.
One of the things I want to explore this year is what makes a witch, a witch. This ties into the events of this last week, I promise. We are all aware of the history of persecution of those suspected of witchcraft, whether the accused were actually practicing witchcraft or not. It comes as no surprise that modern witches hail from a long cultural tradition of outcasts, edge-dwellers, and people who aren’t “traditional” in one way or another.
Let’s begin with a quick run-down of things a witch is not, necessarily:
A witch is not necessarily a woman.
A witch is not necessarily a pagan.
A witch is not necessarily a follower of ancient deities, a reader of tarot, or a person who believes in astrology.
For the purposes of discussion, let’s be very clear that a witch is whomever they damn well please.
HOWEVER.
Democrats in the United States talk about the “big tent” under which all are welcome, but I do not adhere to this philosophy. If you let literally anyone in, you cannot really stand for anything because, as the saying goes, you can’t please everyone. And I am not the Grand High Arbiter of Who Gets To Be A Witch, by any means, although if someone wants to nominate me as such at the next Worldwide Witchengamoot, I’d happily and gracefully accept – especially if it comes with a cute cottage and a garden. But seriously.
In fact, as I think more about what I’m trying to say, I realize that the persecution of witchcraft and white supremacy go hand in hand (beyond the obvious misogynist and racist garbage). The way to get oneself out of being a witch was often to die, because it is impossible to prove a negative. I can’t prove I didn’t curse my neighbor’s cow, after all. “Dunking a witch” involved holding her under water. If she lived, she was a witch! If she didn’t, she was dead – and possibly still a witch, no way to tell now since she can’t defend herself.
We are currently dealing with a similar level of logical fallacy, perpetuated by the U.S. President. It has also resulted in deaths of innocent people, and will continue to do so on a scale that no witch hunt in history has.
As a group of people who are already outside the accepted western world’s Judeo-Christian focus, or the state-sponsored atheism of Communism, we all have varying degrees of first-hand knowledge of what it means to be at least a little bit “other.” As a white-skinned witch in a very Christian and Catholic family, I cannot speak to the challenges that Black and brown witches face, nor would it be appropriate for me to do so. I can only take my own feelings of being othered, multiply them by approximately eleventy-billion, and do my best to both support and admire the conviction and connection witches of color have.
That is to say: witches cannot adhere to, knowingly participate in, or in any way condone white supremacy. I say “knowingly” because we live in a white supremacist society, and even those who are working hard to overcome that conditioning will fuck it up on the regular. But once you know, you know, and we had damn well be doing better, because if you think for one minute those rabid white supremacists waltzing around the U.S. Capitol for “God and country” wouldn’t come for us as witches, I wave my hand broadly at all of history to remind you that our safety is an illusion.
The only way to make that illusion a reality is to fight white supremacy with every tool at our considerable disposal.