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Date: 06 Nov 2000 00:00:00 GMT
Subject: Re: In response to an attack
Message-ID: <20001105211748.08228.00000571@ng-cj1.aol.com>
References: <3A04C901.3FAA@luckymojo.com>
Organization: AOL http://www.aol.com
Newsgroups: alt.religion.orisha
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Subject: Re: In response to an attack
>From: catherine yronwode cat@luckymojo.com
>Date: 11/4/00 9:34 PM EST
>Message-id: <3A04C901.3FAA@luckymojo.com>
>
>Grisso,
>
>What is your objective with these snipes?
>
>Are you merely venting spleen or do you hope to encourage other people
>in the newsgroup to verbally disrespect Eoghan and me like you do?
> If they do, will this bring peace to you?
> Will it make you happy?
>
>You and i used to converse politely, and even discussed at length an
>area of mutual interest, the African roots of Egyptian / Jewish beliefs.
I don't remember, but I take your word for it.
>Then, somehow, when Eoghan questioned that notion and even opposed it,
>you started lumping me in with him, calling him a "sorceror" and me a
He called himself that.
>"hobbyist."
Hardly a term of derogation. But fine, let us all know what to call someone who
is interested in hoodoo, but not necessarily of the hoodoo tradition. You
called yourself a freemason, remember, in the post to which I was responding.
>I still don't know how this all came about, but lately i
>have been getting the impression that there is a racist message
>underlying some of your hostility. (Forgive me if i am wrong, but this
>is the impression i am getting!) It seems as if you recently have
>implied that Eoghan's light skin colour means that his dark-skinned
>elders either sold out their culture by teaching him their secrets or
>that they have withheld their secrets from him due to his skin colour.
Not due to skin color. As I said many times, in different ways, he who is
insincere and deceitful will himself find teachers who are insincere and
deceitful. He who is interested in sorcery, will find a sorcerer for a teacher.
Would you not agree? If so, then it begins to make sense why Eoghan would --
wrongly, and to the derogation of ATR -- seek to form an equation between
sorcerer and priest within ATR. And it begins to make sense why Eoghan denies
the higher religious teachings of ATR. He may not be aware of any of them
because none of his teachers taught them to him. Perhaps they themselves do not
know. Perhaps they know, but given the interests and limitations of the
student, they did not see the necessity or desirability of addressing such
matters with that particular student. Insincerity and deceit are not racial
attributes, and don't necessarily correlate with skin color.
At the same time, becoming a priest in ATR requires a calling. Few Africans
have such a calling, let alone non-Africans. When a non-African anthropologist
or "Africanist" comes, seeking to do research, only miraculously then to find
that they have a "calling", one is entitled to a certain scepticism. It would
seem rather that initiation is undertaken as part of the research stratagem,
for without initiation, they would have to give up all hope of access to the
secrets which are seen as essential to the research project.
As to Eoghan in particular, he has shown his insincerity in many ways, big and
small. Certainly, he has shown a disdain for ATR, priest within it though he
claims to be. As to Africa and Africans, he shares the prejudices of so many
white racists, who, confronted with any evidence of African accomplishment,
leaps, against all logic, to any hypothesis that ascribes a non-African
provenance. Challenged, he says of the facts and arguments that point to the
far more likely African provenance, that these may be "reasonably disputed",
but is completely silent as to the reasons that may be brought forward to
dispute the clear and obvious hypothesis. I could go on.
>
>As a member of an extended multi-racial family, with many additional
>non-family links to a community whose members do not resemble me in
>terms of skin colour, i have heard my share of put-downs from folks who
>want the races to remain segregated. Bceause of the problems that
>outsiders have brought to my family due to both skin colour issues and
>perceived "race and culture" issues, i may be hyper-sensitive here, but,
>please, for the record, i really want to know if it is skin colour that
>is fueling your anger at Eoghan or simply very strong opposition to his
>beliefs concerning the history of Africa.
>
>But if it is the latter, then how did *i* -- whose beliefs about human
>history more closely parallel yours than his -- become a target of your
>continuing public snipes? Again, i must ask if this is a skin colour
>issue, or did you genuinely confuse me with Eoghan due to something i
>said or failed to say in support of the idea of the African roots of
>civilization?
I generally say what I mean, and mean what I say. Take whatever I have said to
make you think what you think at its face. If I seem to be proceeding from a
false premise, by all means you are welcome to disabuse me. But it does seem
clear to me that you two are a pair, which is confirmed for me by your
selective condemnation. You condemn other people for sins of which Eoghan is
equally guilty, yet you fail to condemn him. Just in this exchange, you see my
"snipe", but you fail to see those from him and his gang to which I was
responding. That too: you warn the group against forming gangs, yet the only
one clearly in existence is the one, uniformly light in color, of which you
appear to be a charter member. No, if I wanted to take issue with Eoghan on the
basis of race, I could certainly find the words to do so. If I wanted to lump
you in with him purely on that basis, I again could find the words to do so. In
fact, let me do so now and turn the tables. It does not escape my notice,
especially since you raise the issue, that those gratuitously taking sides with
Eoghan and against me, are uniformly white. And none have deigned to address
the substantive issues I have taken the trouble, at some length, to outline. Do
you think they side with him out of racial solidarity? Or is it that they think
the sincerity of any ATR priesthood initiate ought to be beyond question? Or
just white ones?
>Seriously, Grisso, this is bothering me, because if people of good will
>and mutual interests cannot discourse pleasantly in usenet, how can they
>do so in the world at large?
That is a very good question. I wish I had the answer. I would say this,
however: it does seem to me that white folk feel that they share least in the
blame, notwithstanding the racial crimes they have committed over at least the
last 500 years, and for which there has been neither apology, reparation, nor
atonement.
>I am sorry to bring these things up, but the snipes are ongoing and i
>believe that it is fair to ask you what goal or conclusion you are
>aiming for.
I have already made clear what my purpose is in engaging Eoghan and his
misstatements about Africa, Africans, and ATR. If, however, you refer
specifically to the witticism about Rodney Dangerfield etc., you might want to
ask the author of that particular witticism, also that of his tag-team partner,
why they resort, unavailingly it would appear, to this tactic. I can play that
game too.
>cat yronwode
>
Peace,
Grisso
"But I'd much rather deal with the substantive issues."
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