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Tuesday, July 4, 2023

Book-It '23! Book #22: "Becoming Dangerous" edited by Katie West and Jasmine Elliott

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The all new 50 Books Challenge!



Title: Becoming Dangerous: Witchy Femmes, Queer Conjurers, and Magical Rebels edited by Katie West and Jasmine Elliott

Details: Copyright 2019, Weiser Books

Synopsis (By Way of Back Cover): "The difference between the witch and the layperson is that witches already know they are powerful. The lay person may only suspect.

Edgy and often deeply personal, the twenty-one essays collected here come from a wide variety of contributors. Some identify as witches, others identify as writers, musicians, game developers, or artists. What they have in common is that they’ve created personal rituals to summon their own power in a world that would prefer them powerless. Here, they share the rituals they use to resist self-doubt, grief, and depression in the face of sexism, slut shaming, racism, patriarchy, and other systems of oppression.

"This is a book about magic-- what is is, where it comes from, and how queer women and femmes, women of color, and trans women have used it since the dawn of humanity to survive in a world that would just as soon have them enslaved or dead." -- Misha Magdalene, Patheos

"Whether harnessing the power of nature, tarot, crystals, and candles or selfies, makeup, video games, and sex toys, these rebels, sluts, femmes, and witches heal from trauma, challenge institutional racism, dismantle misogyny, and create community. Replete with prose that is at turns revealing, relatable, and bitingly funny, this book lays the groundwork for summoning your own salvation on your own terms."

--Kristen J. Sollée, author of
Witches, Sluts, Feminists"


Why I Wanted to Read It: The last few years have been big for Witch books, of Witches of all kinds.


How I Liked It: THE BOOK CONTAINS MURDER, RACISM, ABUSE, SEXISM, TRANSPHOBIA, POLICE BRUTALITY, NAZIS AND NAZISM, AND THE REVIEW MAKES MENTION OF IT. PLEASE PROCEED ACCORDINGLY.

I've had some strange things happen in the years since I started this project. Strange book occurrences, I mean. All of a sudden, books start talking to each other. Books that have absolutely nothing in common suddenly belong on the same shelf. And now, a concept for a book first fails, and then succeeds. Let's dig in.

The book is a series of essays from different writers (with accompanying table of contents of content warnings-- appreciated!) on mostly forms of magic that involve mostly mundane activities. The magic isn't always that as performed by magic-makers, sometimes it's simply the magic of a sense of power and independence. Everything from skin care to weight-lifting to make-up to video games to nails to gardening to attending to therapy and beyond, all are ways the authors find a sense of power in a world that increasingly makes them feel powerless. The simple activities soothe larger, uglier problems: eating disorders, trauma, racism, colonialism, transphobia, generational trauma, poverty, misogyny, just about all the evils of the world.

First, a reminder about the time period in which this book was published: the late 2010s saw a soaring of political activism, a not insignificant part of it by first time activists, and people looking to make sense of an ever more chaotic world. The horrors of the 45th Presidency were fresh and unrelenting and people had no way of knowing how bad it would get, and the sense of surrealism was still fresh, even in 2019.

This book is a natural successor to Witches, Sluts, Feminists, and indeed, Kristen J. Sollée writes the heavily touted foreword (promoted on the cover) and blurbs the back. However, this book is just about everything that book was not.

It's hard to review a book with so many different authors, and given that I'm only reading an essay of their respective work, I'm only going to name the authors when I single out their work for praise (aside from the author I've already named, as I've reviewed her work before). And there's a lot to be praised here. The diversity of the writers and the quality of the writing is staggering and genuinely thought-provoking. While not every chapter lands (one particularly had me wondering if the author was actively working to sell beauty products rather than talk about their own techniques and rituals), many do and there are several masterpieces, even, that will change how you look at the seemingly simple things that make up every day life. It's a call to action as well as empowering and inspiring and however disparate the subject matter, it really feels like what it intends to be: an inspiration to find the magic and empowerment wherever you can and use it to fight back against oppression.

While Witches, Sluts, Feminists is about a specific topic (more or less) by a single author and this is an anthology from various authors about general personal power, it's clear the books are related (thus Sollée's involvement) and I'm reading them because they were recommended together. They are birds of a feather, and yet in some ways, they could not be more different. I didn't come away from Witches with the empowering call to action or the renewed respect for the mystical figure of the witch (and for magic itself) the way I did from this book. In addition, the writing is many places is absolutely gorgeous and evocative of the myriad of settings (perhaps an unfair comparison: this book leans more on memoir in places than Witches did). In short, this book succeeds in places where Witches couldn't.

In fairness, clearly this book has some of the other in its DNA. But given such a similar concept, there's no question as to which book actually delivered on its considerable promise.



Notable:

When I first started teaching my college course, The Legacy of the Witch, at the New School five years ago, incorporating social justice into discussions about witchcraft seemed novel to students taking the class. Fascinating, yes, but removed from reality, they'd say. They perceived the political realm as devoid of grace and magic. They understood witchcraft to be all aesthetic and no action. But every year since then, as the American government has doubled down on exclusionary, punitive, and oppressive policies, my students arrive more and more primed to view the necessity of studying the two in tandem. Many even come to the table well-versed in both subjects, already part of magical communities putting on their own protests and using ritual as intimate parts of their own acts of resistance. (pg x, Foreword)



Here's a great example of why I hate the term "witchy" used for anything: "all aesthetic and no action" is how too many people I've met see Witchcraft.



When studying witchcraft and social justice movements of the past and present, cyclical patterns emerge. As a fraught political climate simmers and comes to a roil, the occult is often the next mode of defense, of reproach. This holds today as much as it did in the age of second wave feminism and neopaganism, and in the time of suffragists and Spiritualism. Historically, many of the greatest acts of resistance have been informed by spiritual practice. And some of the most nourishing spiritual practices have been borne within society's stifling political strictures, like so many buds finally bursting through fallow soil. (pg x, Foreword)



Credit to Sollée, that's an interesting comparison to make.


In 1843, Isabella Baumfree received an otherworldly call to serve. She christened herself Sojourner Truth. She traversed the country to share and teach and extemporize about womanhood and inequity and the painful realities of racism and sexism that were tearing America apart. Truth, a former slave, was a devout Christian. By today's standards, she was much more. Historian Nell Irvin Painter argues that Truth's syncretic spiritual practice, a mix of West African animistic beliefs, American folk magic, and Dutch Calvinism and Methodism makes her a witch in the contemporary sense of the word. Her rituals were public, massive and mesmeric, drawing hundreds hypnotized by her impassioned oratory as she planted the seeds that would later bloom into Womanism and Intersectionality. (pg xi, Foreward)



Oh, dear, Sojourner Truth again. And once again, I've spoken about this before, but we have so many fascinating people that wear and have worn the title of "witch" with pride. We don't have to force the title on someone who wouldn't have wanted it and saw it as an insult at best. Please don't do this.
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The difference between the witch and the layperson is that a witch already knows that they are powerful The layperson may only suspect. To tap into this power, a witch performs rituals with purpose, with intent, and with an enviable aesthetic. (pg xv, Introduction)



Again with the aesthetic.
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Currently, the world is very similar in look and feel to a dumpster on fire. It's been this way for a while, so we keep trying to come up with ways to make it better, or easier, or kinder. But as of yet, nothing has really worked. Not fighting for it, dying for it, praying for it, working for it, or wishing for it. As a result, we feel powerless. In response to this failure, many have resorted to coming up with ways to explain it, to look at the world around them and see it was normal. 'This is fine.' (pg xv, Introduction)



That meme, the artist really had no idea.
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What makes these arbitrary actions into rituals is the intention behind them. Witches already know this. So do religions. They know that rituals don't mean anything on their own, separate from any context; it's the intention that makes a series of arbitrary actions powerful. But unlike religious rituals-- which are prescribed by someone else and must be performed in a certain way-- the rituals we discover and create for ourselves, like the ones described by the authors in this book, can grow out of our own bodies, spirits and desires. The act of deliberately choosing to apply significance to our actions and to cultivate a deeper meaning to them is powerful. WE can use ritual to gain control, and not just any kind of control-- a specific type of control that requires no one else's approval or permission. It is completely self-wrought and that makes it incredibly powerful. (pg xvi, Introduction)



ONE INTERPRETATION OF WITCHCRAFT (and yes, I mean Witchcraft, not Wicca) IS A RELIGION. ALSO DON'T SAY "RELIGION" WHEN YOU MEAN "CHRISTIANITY" OR "ABRAHAMIC RELIGION".
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The editors make some notes that are both fascinating and thankfully seem a bit dated. Although really, they seem a bit dated for 2019, too.


There is also a pronoun in Catherine Hernandez's essay-- *their- that is how her love refers to themselves. (pg xviii, Notes From the Editors)



Singular "they" has existed since Shakespeare's time and more relevantly, a lot of people use it and have used it without thinking about it ("Who left their bag here?"), making this note somewhat unnecessary.


The word nonbinary has been expressed without the hyphen in most cases (subject to the author's preference), and our reasoning for doing so is that hyphens are often used when something new enters the English language with the help of a prefix. once that word has been around for a while and is accepted into normal usage, it often loses the hyphen. We felt expressing it without a hyphen shows, in language, an acceptance and embracing of nonbinary people. However, we recognize that, as Maranda Elizabeth-- who feels the word non-binary/nonbinary may currently be more accepted in language but not in concept and understanding of lived experience-- graciously explained to us, having to identify with words that describe what people are not (nonbinary, genderless) rather than what they are isn't ideal. We've tried to do the best we can with the language currently available to us. (pgs xviii and xix)



I get the good intentions, but honestly this note was just a bit distracting (and a little othering). Nonbinary or non-binary, it's an anthology by multiple authors, of course there will be different spellings of certain terms.
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I've been regularly catcalled since the time I was in tenth grade. (pg 41)



I hate the fact that when I read this, my first thought was not horror or shock, but surprise because I've been regularly catcalled since at least middle school. Actually, I'd say probably even last year of elementary school, maybe.
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The word "lesbian" didn't sit right [with my identification of myself]. To me, it connotes a very particular sect of the community that still connects to the idea of a gender binary. I wanted a more fluid identity that transcended body parts. (pg 45)



People have a right to define themselves and their sexual orientations and identities how they see fit, so long as it's not reinforcing false information about another orientation. And this passage doesn't sit right with me. I've known several non-binary lesbians. All orientations are inherently trans and nonbinary inclusive. Body parts do not equal gender.
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One part of my identity I'd always been confident of was 'genius' (yes, I'm yet another millennial told she had limitless potential). (pg 57)



After the years of the harsh real world deprogramming my millennial delusions of grandeur, I know now that I wasn't a brilliant student. (pg 57)



[My aunt] was adamant that I was an "Indigo Child", an ill-defined term that indicated that I was special. (How many of us limitless-potential millennials heard this moniker growing up?) (pg 60)




Remember what I said about using generational terms unnecessarily? For one, the whole "gifted and talented children" programs in the modern day started with Generation X (and were for Baby Boomer parents). As did, incidentally, Indigo Children (technically, it started with late Baby Boomers, but first reached popularity with Generation X children. The whole "Millennials think they're special" comes from the same recycled "I hate the younger generation!" nonsense that has been floating around for millennia but has gained a pseudo-historical basis in recent decades. Yes, there are generational differences! There are events that shape and form generations. Thus why we shouldn't throw around terms, especially in this quisling way to show we're not like the other ones, we get it.
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Think of yourself the way modern-day authors write about the old gods. They get their power through worship. The more people who worship them, the stronger they are. According to these writers, the reason you don't see Odin and Bast and Quetzalcoatl around as much is because not nearly as many people worship them. It's the same thing with you. Don't become like these old gods. Stay fresh and stay relevant and stay vibrant. The more people look at you, the more they stare, the more they want you, the more power you have. (pgs 134 and 135)




This is about not wanting to be invisible anymore, to stand out. I get the idea but, well.

You'll excuse me if I blink for a few minutes in contemporary Pagan. Uh, people still very much worship all the Gods named here. I also do not subscribe to those beliefs about Gods and power. It's hard not to find this pretty offensive and clueless, particularly in a book with "Witch" in the subtitle.
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While I must be careful to practice cultural appreciation rather than appropriation, I also work closely with Kali, the deeply misunderstood Hindu mother goddess of creation and destruction, who is fabulous at demon-slaying. And who can forget dear Satan? I don't think we need to be so afraid of black magic. The term black magic itself very often refers to certain hoodoo and voodoo practices, and it is frankly racist to label the terms white magic as good and black magic as bad.. Humans are oh-so-messy and grey. My practice is glittery and needs all the colours of the rainbow to survive.

[...]

After my meditation, I'll sage the area and all my supplies, including my candle. (pg 191)



Let's perhaps put down the whole concept of "color" magic in this sense. If you mean magic made by predominantly Black cultures, at least give it the capital B (and recognize that you're going to have to explain, because "black" magic meaning "bad" is horribly ingrained in our culture). I've mentioned before my disinterest in Abrahamic concepts like Satan in my Witchcraft, so pass. But lastly, please do not use the term "sage" unless you belong to one of the Native cultures that do that. It costs nothing to say "smoke-cleanse" instead.
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Finally, a round-up of excellent writing, excellent points, and just all around passages I particularly liked and found useful from this book.


Disability is rarely mentioned alongside witchcraft. For that reason, I intentionally devote time and imagination to writing as a sick mad crip borderline witch, to re-writing spells and re-defining tarot cards from my own disabled perspective(s). I'm a cripple-witch who always has psyche meds and painkillers in their pockets and on their altars.

I name who I'm writing for, a form of invocation, of acknowledgement. Cripple witches, medicated witches, crazy witches. Misfits and solitaries. Anti-capitalists and mad folks, city-witches, traumatized fuck-ups, the abandoned. I write for those of us who are poor, those of us on social assistance. Those who were/are bullied for our magic, for our survival skills. (pg 23)




Lacking adequate crevices in trees, squirrels build their own nests, collecting leaves and other little scraps of nature to gather into the corners of branches where they fork, building safe and cosy spaces for themselves and their families. Other squirrels burrow underground. They scramble through parks and alleyways. They find what they need.

Unlike us, squirrels and raccoons don't have to pay rent. The trees and garbage already belong to them, and they know they belong with the trees and garbage, too. They don't need to contact anyone before moving in, don't need to ask for permission, don't need to sign papers, prove their identity, earn cash. They don't have to worry about noisy neighbours or eviction notices. They don't have to cast spells. (pg 27)



--From Trash-Magic: Signs & Rituals for the Unwanted by Maranda Elizabeth



I pulled out my conspicuously pink plastic earbuds, jammed them into my ears and blasted Beyoncé. The comfort was fleeting. Although I couldn't hear men on the street for the rest of my commute, I could still see them. I thought back to my teens, Sarah and I feeling flattered by their attention, and felt sick. Simultaneously, some twisted, tiny sliver of myself felt relieved that I still registered as attractive. My insides churned. Once again, I felt utterly helpless. (pg 42)



Taking purposely ugly photos is such a small thing, but it feels subversive in a world that values prettiness in girls and women above so many other traits. You can be smart and interesting and successful-- as long as you look good while doing it. This is how we're trained to receive women: visual first, second, and third-- then maybe we can move onto other topics. Get the aesthetics wrong and your infraction will overpower anything else you do or say. (pgs 42 and 43)



I frequently feel like I look good. And even when I don't, anyone with negative things to say about my appearance will be taken down swiftly and mercilessly. This have very little to do with my personal relationships with my body; as a feminist, it's simply a matter of principle. I'm not here for other people criticising women's bodies. On the flip side, I'm not here to march in the 'all women's bodies are beautiful' parade/Dove ad campaign. Not for myself and not for anyone else. (pg 44)



Here's the thing: I don't want a world in which all women feel beautiful. I want a world in which physical beauty is irrelevant to women's self-esteem and self-worth. It's nice to feel attractive, sure. But I don't buy into the idea that attractiveness is an essential trait in women, or that all women must strive for it. I feel an overwhelming indifference when I look in the mirror on most days and that's fine! Beauty is not a mandatory requirement for me or any other woman. Neither is liking the way I look. (pg 44)




--From Uncensoring My Ugliness by Laura Mandanas


Come and see them, my familiars, my little creations.

Here are the succulents, overflowing as the Nile overflows its banks. Here are the purple stars of Echeveria, spiny as shells, and the rosettes of stonecrop, moss green in little branched bouquets. Here is the explosion of yellow-striped Aeonium, proud as Lucifer fanning his wings, and the little Cotyldedon, snuggled together like baby rabbits in the hutch. Here is the glassy green jade plant and its little flowers, pale as constellations; here are the golden barrels, like barbarian warlords with spiny crowns.

Beyond them are the silver-blue stalks of Senecio and the dusty Dudleya, like a matron in a grey-watered silk gown. Beneath them are the feathery Sempervivum, fat hens surrounded by clusters of chicks. Beside them are little firestorms, plump as the paws of kittens, and the red pencil shrub, like a reef of flaming coral, with its poisonous sap that sears the skin. Above them all is the ruthless and towering agave, its blades serrated as bread knives, its veins as stiff with toxic sap as a hard-on gorged with blood.

The wind blows off the mountains; the wind blows from the sea. The orange trees stir, heavy with fruit; the lemon trees bob in the breeze. The kumquat and calamondin are still beside the single pomegranate teeming with bloody seeds. (pgs 82 and 83)




--From Garden by Marguerite Bennett


A recent study has documented a jump in hate crimes in major American cities since the November 2016 election, particularly against Muslims and transgender people, which is consistent with anecdotal reports. As a woman of colour and an immigrant myself, I've found myself keeping an eye out for other women, particularly those who might be from targeted groups, on subways and in other public spaces. I think of this as 'soeurveillance' (from the French soeur, sister). (pg 122)



I saw this deterrence in action on the community scale at a march in Boston in August 2017, a counterprotest to a 'free speech rally' that included a number of speakers associated with white supremacist movements. This was less than a week after the Charlottesville clashes between counterprotesters and armed white supremacists and alt-right militias at a rally, which culminated in a hate group member ramming his car into a crowd, killing one person and injuring nineteen others. Every single person who showed up at the Boston counterprotest march knew that there was a possibility of another attack. The protest signs were unusually sweary, even for a protest in the US in 2017; one of my friends said that she had decided to use the word 'fuck' on her sign because she (correctly) anticipated that the risk of violence meant there would be very few children present. A careful observer that day might also have noticed that all the marchers were holding their signs in their hands-- the Boston police had issued a warning that anything that could be used as a weapon, including posts for signs, would not be allowed on Boston Common, the site of the 'free speech rally.' About fifteen thousand people showed up for the march and counterprotest, and almost every one of us had made a conscious decision to not only face the possibility of physical violence, but to face it unarmed. Only a hundred or so people attended the 'free speech rally' itself, and the organisers cancelled the entire series of events that they had planned. (pgs 122 and 123)



An experiment for women in dense urban environments is to walk around your city and be aware of every time you're about to step out of the way to clear the path of a man, and then don't do so. At least three female-presenting friends told me about being all but bodychecked by men, who were presumably expecting that they would get out of the way, even if only unconsciously. (pg 125)



We're not getting strong because the future is coming for us. We're learning to fight so we can come for the future. (pg 129)



--From The Future is Coming for You by Deb Chachra


There are just as many colours of hankies as there are candles. There are just as many ways to weave together spells. Even more, there's a strong magic of tradition in using the hanky code. For decades, [queer people] had to use this code to communicate in secret with each other to avoid persecution. This is a secret language of symbols and colours and body language. Few things get more magical than that. The souls of the gay men and lesbians and bisexual people who went cruising every night in decades past live on in the hankies that you carry in your back pockets. These are your ancestors. They give you strength. (pg 137)



--From My Witch's Sabbath of Short Skirts, Long Kisses, and BDSM by Mey Rule


It's easy to be critical of the individualised, capitalist cult of 'self-care' as indulgence achieved primarily through purchase. But such an analysis always risks sliding into blaming women for being dupes stupid enough to buy into consumerist messaging about worth and value. Plenty of women already feel guilty enough for treating their body as something worth caring for- their struggle is less about recognizing the limits of self-care as a concept and more about learning to see the body as a real object deserving of loving attention. The trouble only arrives when this recognition is divorced from the context of patriarchy, or when it's treated as the ultimate goal of feminism. (pgs 174 and 175)




--From Fingertips by merritt k


Because, hey man, what I want matters. I matter enough to put myself first; I matter enough to put myself first; I matter enough to take up space with colour and clunky bags of lipstick and polish. I also know that performing these rituals keeps my resolve in place. They give me strength and they are also the foundation for my resistance, because if I can say, 'No, I'm painting my nails', then it's only a tiny step forward to say, 'No, make your own food', or 'No, I'll go out if I want to.' (pg 208)



--From Touching Pennies, Painting Nails by Sim Bajwa


Before the 2016 United States presidential election, I had been having nightmares; hiding from Nazis was the common theme. Nazis at the door, SS officers coming to find us, me and others hiding in closets and behind walls and under tables and beds and floors. My brain had plenty of fodder for these nightmares as both my grandparents had survived World War II, my grandmother in occupied territory and my grandfather in a concentration camp. (pg 213)



--From Ritual in Darkness by Kim Boekbinder


It's a late night at the apartment. Rain knocks at the window, coffee brews, and I'm separating a collection of herbs and dirt, placing them into piles. Behind me, a paper moon attached to a starry night sky and dark maroon drapes. I'm sitting by the vintage Victorian loveseat and antique elephant plant stand painted to look like the one in my grandparents' home growing up. The large 1920s radio acts as an altar table. On it is a mix of antique candleholders ranging from the 1920s to World War II, mirrors, Victorian tintypes, stray tarot cards, cake toppers, and a collection of oils and dirt from sacred places. Relics from hotels that no longer exist are framed on the walls and sit atop a collection of vintage suitcases on a painted wardrobe cabinet. My house is a collection of golds, jewelled reds, dark blues and greens. People who come here compare it to a museum or a vintage theatre set. Spread across the floor, the herbs lay on pieces of wax paper. one will be crushed and burned as incense; the rest will remain in the mortar to be mixed with soil, whispered to, and sprinkled into fresh paint. These are the first few steps in creating portals, the doorways into time frames we may or may not see. (pg 238)



Looking at the history of the land, I was able to connect the repetitions in time. A good example of how this works is Coney Island. Coney Island was originally called Narioch, meaning 'land without shadows'. As Dutch settlements grew and Native Americans were swindled and pushed out of the land that would eventually become Brooklyn, the name changed to Conyne Eylandt, which is seen on seventeenth-century Dutch maps and is purported to mean 'Rabbit Island', coming from the Dutch word 'conyn', meaning rabbit. The name was anglicised to Coney Island when the British took over in the mid-seventeenth century. (pg 250)




--From Pushing Beauty Up Through the Cracks by Katelan Foisy


Still, it is worth nothing that these (hollow) patriarchal protections are not extended to black women in the same way in which they are extended to white women. White women have protested loudly- and justly- about their infantilisation, about their depiction as damsels in distress. Meanwhile, black women- and many other women of colour- have never been afforded the privilege of a childhood or the role of a damsel. Take it back to The Birth of a Nation; the fear of black sexuality and the depiction of black people of any gender as hypersexualised has persisted to this day. This, too, has been a justification for violence against us, sexual or otherwise. Our children are never allowed to just be children; our twelve-year-old victims of violence are suddenly adults. Our women will never be rescued from the tower; they have never been worth saving. (pg 256)



Voodoo, hoodoo, voudou, vudu. Some of these traditions, Haitian voudou for example, are particularly known for their acceptance of the more marginalised amongst us-- queer, trans, and nonbinary practioners. Multiple voudou spirits experience same-gender attraction. Others are described as being dux-maniere, doubly-gendered. The religion is very much considered a place of solace for queer Haitians. It is said that the only place that lesbians feel safe identifying as such is within peristils, voudou temples, and the level of acceptance is such that most queer and trans advocacy outreach programmes tend to be based in peristils themselves.

But, as is often the way of a violently anti-queer and trans world, voudou's association with the marginalised has resulted in the demonisation of the religion itself. Even so, voudou and peristils are places where queer, trans, and nonbinary Haitians-- and their diaspora-- can find some belonging. True black magic. (pgs 258 and 259)



Still, as the good Lorde reminds us: the master's tools will never dismantle the master's house. (pg 261)




--From Ritualising My Humanity by J. A. Micheline


And lastly, even the about the authors and acknowledgements:

Sophie Saint Thomas is a queer writer based in Brooklyn, where she lives with two marmalade cats, Mama Cat and Major Tom Cat. (pg 291)



Is Mama Cat short for Mama Cass, I wonder? Maybe not.


And thank you to my cat, Bruce, because who writes an acknowledgements section and doesn't thank their cat? (pg 294)



Katie West, one of the editors, knows the score on the cat front. Hope Bruce got treats.



Final Grade: A

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