Religious appropriation, revisited

Infant of Prague and Sacred Heart of Jesus candles are from my Flickr page.




I have written of religious appropriation before, and how very difficult it is to define. It usually starts some pretty good arguments, so let's get down to business!

I recently discovered someone on Twitter named phyrecracker, who believes Westerners practicing yoga is a racist act. She doesn't simply propose the idea, she endorses it as a fact.

Some of her tweets:

I need 2 say again: if u participate in the fuckery of yoga, our religious practice, Kali Ma will shit on you. Consider yourself warned.[1]

I'd like to c ppl RT that flaming morsel of truth rather than the pretty white smiling families

I'm sure she'll be happy she got a whole blog post, rather than a simple RT (retweet).

[to the woman practicing yoga] last thing: 4 u and any1 else who does this wack ass white ppl yoga know that u cannot achieve inner peace on a basis of racism

sweep the criticism of the Indian under the rug while you go enjoy the religious practice that white ppl steal from us

Hm.

I tried this on for size, to see how it fit...especially with Christmas looming over the horizon:

I need 2 say again: if u participate in the fuckery of Christmas, our religious practice, Mother Mary will shit on you. Consider yourself warned.[2]

Interesting.

Of course, they will then say nothing is authentically Catholic... they will say we "appropriated" Mary from an amalgam of European goddesses, too. But of course, we can continue that particular game back to the beginning of time, can't we?

Who's on First?

I am disturbed by phyrecracker's comments because I actually adhered to some version of them myself once. As I've written before, I briefly passed through a rather hard-core Catholic phase (for me, anyway), during which I became furious when (for example) non-Catholics would listen to Mozart's Requiem Mass in D Minor... and when atheists or anti-Catholics listened? It would send me through the roof.

And if they actually PLAYED the music, as in, played instruments in an orchestra? LIVID. It enraged me, exactly as phyrecracker is enraged. I felt the appropriation and I felt the disrespect: IT'S A MASS, do you know what a MASS IS? It's a HOLY PRACTICE, THE REAL PRESENCE OF GOD ALMIGHTY... it is not simple entertainment, you fucks! Etc etc etc and I would inevitably hold forth in a most self-righteous fashion. (Dead Air regulars probably have some inkling of what that sounded like.)

And damn, I remember how good that felt.

I often wish I could corral me some good old-fashioned fundamentalist self-righteousness these days... but I seem to be all about compromise. (I always heard this happened when you got old! Shades of GRAY predominate, God help me!) Now, you could play the Requiem Mass in a strip club and I wouldn't raise an eyebrow. (And if the stripper in question was creative enough to DRESS like Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart? I'd likely enjoy it myself.)

Seriously, though... at least once every Christmas season I am somewhat peeved when I see non-Christians singing OUR songs and participating in OUR holiday. [3]

But you know, that's how it is in our global times; I don't assume everyone who eats Halloween candy is a pagan. I don't assume everyone who participates in Thanksgiving dinner, believes the accompanying just-so story about pilgrims and Native Americans sitting down to a common meal together, giving thanks to God/Great Spirit. I don't assume everyone who paints Easter eggs is pagan OR Christian. Some of them just want to paint eggs. The egg-painting has no additional meaning if the person painting them is simply doing this for the kids' Easter egg hunt. Playing Beethoven, Bach, Schubert and other classical music originally written for the Church, does not make you a Christian. Even though this music was created as part of Mass/Eucharistic Adoration/Benediction, most musicians nowadays (and certainly, most musicians in non-Western countries) play these pieces of music while not fully understanding what they are for and what they represent. And they can play them VERY WELL. Likewise, one can practice Yoga asanas without being religious too.

One can strike yoga poses, like musical notes, with no understanding, and still reach the desired goal. To the religious person, it may not seem exactly fair, but it is indeed so.

And does phyrecracker take December 25th off or eat candy canes? If so: How dare she participate in the fuckery of Christmas.

As one of my favorite Bible verses says, there is not one righteous, no, not one.

And what are your thoughts?



~*~



1) Kali Ma refers to the Hindu Goddess Kali.

2) A friend reading over this post offers the observation that Kali tends to be an avenging sort, while the Blessed Mother is not. In reply, I offer the fact that Mary has morphed to suit various purposes throughout the ages, including (a close second to Kali) Our Lady of Victory, popularized by scary Simon de Montfort during the Crusades.

3) Certain traditional hymns can set me off, such as Lo, How a Rose E'er Blooming or O come, O come, Emmanuel--both of which seem almost blasphemous in a shopping-mall setting. Any time I hear them outside of Church? Makes me ineffably sad.

Reverend Ike 1935-2009

Reverend Ike TV-advertisement from TV Party!




Before there was The Secret, before Kenneth Copeland and Joyce Meyer, before Joel Osteen and Rod Parsley.... there was (native South Carolinian) Reverend Ike, born Frederick J. Eikerenkoetter II.

There was no word for it in the 70s, so no one referred to Reverend Ike's unique approach as Prosperity Theology. But what has become fairly common among a certain school of televangelists today, was basically stolen from Reverend Ike, and later morphed into this modern media phenomenon.

Yes, I said stolen.

I've written about appropriation before in the area of music, which is what I am familiar with. But as my regular readers know, I also follow religion and spirituality. And I have always been struck by how Joel Osteen sounds like a suburban, squeaky-clean, white man's version of Reverend Ike. Nobody credits Reverend Ike, and in fact, as you see from the above-linked Wikipedia entry, he doesn't even get mentioned in the line-up with the other Prosperity Gospel preachers. Why not? T.D. Jakes and Benny Hinn are duly listed, and I might take issue with their places on the list. But Reverend Ike? He was first.

More cultural theft from African-Americans. So far, none of the formal obituaries I have read, have stated this outright, so I will.

From the Associated Press:

Reverend Ike preached the power of what he called “positive self-image psychology” to his 5,000 parishioners at the United Church Science of Living Institute. The church was housed in a former movie theater in New York's Washington Heights neighborhood.

In the 1970s, Reverend Ike was one of the first evangelists to reach an audience of millions through television.

“This is the do-it-yourself church,” he proclaimed. “The only savior in this philosophy is God in you.”

Reverend Ike stretched Christian tenets, relocating the idea of God to the interior of the self, with the power to bring the believer anything he or she desired in the way of health, wealth and peace of mind.

The philosophy did not sit well with traditional Christian ministers and civil rights leaders who felt black churches should focus on social reform rather than self-fulfillment.

His critics said he preyed on the poor and conned the faithful into giving him donations that he spent on cars, clothes and homes for himself. The IRS and the Postal Service investigated his businesses.

Others defended his philosophy of mind over matter, which appealed to middle-class believers who felt their hard work should be rewarded in this life.

“If it's that difficult for a rich man to get into heaven,” he said, riffing on the famous verse from the book of Matthew, “think how terrible it must be for a poor man to get in. He doesn't even have a bribe for the gatekeeper.”

Whether the good Reverend was right or wrong in his approach, he was the first to popularize this message and take it nationwide. In the 70s, he was famous enough that Richard Pryor played a character based on him (named "Daddy Rich") in the movie Car Wash (1976). Everyone knew who the character was supposed to be.

It's interesting that the official obits now focus on his money and possessions... do you think they will focus on Osteen's or Parsley's, when they finally depart this earth? Well, maybe.

But I can't help but notice that his "visualization" ideas, now transformed into suburban self-help literature, are reduced to lowly money-grubbing in a way that the Osteens (recently respectably profiled on "60 Minutes") and The Secret are not.

The New York Daily News, for instance:

Rev. Ike's ministry reached its peak in the mid-1970s, when his sermons were carried on 1,770 radio stations to an audience estimated at 2.5 million.

He also preached his philosophy of self-empowerment on television and the Internet, in books and magazines, and on audiotapes and videotapes.

From the stage of the former Loews movie theater on 175th St. in Washington Heights, which he restored and transformed into his United Church Science of Living Institute, Rev. Ike would tell thousands of parishioners "this is the do-it-yourself church. The only savior in this philosophy is God in you."

He then would exhort the believers to "close your eyes and see green ... money up to your armpits, a roomful of money, and there you are, just tossing around in it like a swimming pool."

As payback for spiritual inspiration, Rev. Ike asked for cash donations from the faithful - preferably in bills not coins. "Change makes your minister nervous in the service," he would say.

Critics called Rev. Ike a con man, saying the only point of his ministry was getting rich from the donations.

They noted that he made a show of sumptuous clothes, jewelry, posh residences and exotic cars. "My garages runneth over," he would boast.

But his supporters said Rev. Ike's love of luxury had roots both in the traditions of African-American evangelism and the philosophies of mind over matter.

Rev. Ike was born in Ridgeland, S.C., to a father who was a Baptist minister and a mother who taught elementary school. They divorced when he was 5.

At 14, he became an assistant pastor for his father's congregation. He briefly preached in Boston before coming to New York.

He leaves his wife, Eula, and son, Xavier Frederick.

I don't think Joel Osteen's obit will call him a con-man, although I would imagine he is LOTS richer than Reverend Ike, who certainly never had "60 Minutes" come calling.

The juxtaposition is interesting. Why is no one making the comparison?

In Harold Bloom's book The American Religion, there is a chapter about how American Christianity borrowed (appropriated?) certain Gnostic elements of African theology. I'd say the example of Reverend Ike gives us that lesson, right up close and personal.

RIP, Reverend Ike.

What I feel, I can't say, but my love is there for you anytime of day...

The Greatest Beatle of them all. From Dark Horse: The Life And Art Of George Harrison by Geoffrey Giuliano.



I think I first realized it when reading Dark Horse, the biography of my favorite Beatle. The quiet one, the spiritual one.

And on an internet message board some time ago, during the time I was reading the book, someone announced (yes, you know the drill) Christianity Uber Alles and as proof, offered the pop-culture "facts" that the Beatles and Elvis were Christian, at least until John met that awful woman. [1] I wasted no time in jumping on it: Excuse me, but George was no Christian! HANDS OFF GEORGE.

The response: Show me where George officially converted!

And of course, I could have Googled my little heart out and not found a thing... Hinduism is not like Christianity. They do not dip you in water and then announce you are one of them. They just don't do it like that. George spent considerable time in India; learned to play their holy instruments; did whatever various gurus told him to do; financed English translations of the Bhagavad Gita and named his son Dhani. Isn't that enough for you?

No, not for this guy. And I suddenly realized that our world has been MARKED by the presence of the two major religions, Islam and Christianity, the religions that commanded their followers to make believers of all nations.

The Majors, in competition with each other, have very precise rituals for conversion. It starts with an altar call, the announcement: I am a Christian, I am a Muslim. It's on the record. And then, more rituals, classes, education. In Christianity, baptism, and in Catholicism, Lutheranism, Orthodoxy, there is also Confirmation, known as Receiving the Holy Spirit. All of these rituals leave a mark on the convert, as they do on those raised in the faith: you have crossed over. You have been accepted into a tribe; you are one of us.

On Easter, lots of new folks come into the Catholic Church; it's one of the main draws of the long Easter Vigil Mass, in fact... we can watch the faces of the people as they are baptized: some are so pensive and introspective and some are in tears of ecstasy. Some are looking at wives, husbands, moms and dads: I hope this pleases you, because this is embarrassing. The variety of faces reflect all manner of religious experience. I always pick the faces that look happiest, and afterwards, I welcome them personally into the Church. Thus, I am also part of the ritual, if I choose to be.

Other religions do not do this. Therefore, being the Majors, we can judge the conversion not to have really happened. We apply our standards, our measuring sticks, and then find them lacking. Where is the baptism? Did you ANNOUNCE yourself somewhere? Where are the official records?

They don't do it that way. WE do it that way.

Unfortunately, the lack of officialdom, like a lack of borders, can lead to trouble and weirdness. It can lead to appropriation.

And yes, I realize that Islam and Christianity, as The Majors, are appropriated all the time. Rather than see Christmas as Christianity encroaching on secularism, for instance, I tend to see it as the secular world stealing our cool shit. (Hey, Santa Claus was St Nicholas of Myra, goddammit, leave him alone.) When you have all classes of rock bands singing SILENT NIGHT, all you can do is shake your head in amazement. But when you are one of The Majors, you can endure that. In fact, it is just more proof of how BIG you really are. They have Santa Claus in Japanese store windows, now, take that! (Are we #1 or what?)

In the end, Christmas trees and bad carols notwithstanding, the question, the BORDERS, stay constant: ARE YOU A CHRISTIAN? There is only one answer to that. You can modify it any number of ways (and Lord knows, I love my modifiers), but in the end, there is only one answer. There is a BORDER, and there it is: Yes or no?

Again, other religions may not have the brightly-drawn borders; the yesses and nos are not in stark relief.

That means, the stealing is not as well-understood. How can it be stealing if they are giving it away? They do not do it like we do, after all... they don't have a ritual demarcating one's entrance. You can enter and exit at will, any time you want.

And so, people do.

~*~

Daniel Pinchbeck, photo from Sounds True.




All of this came to mind as I read Reality Sandwich, new to my blogroll. I've heard Daniel Pinchbeck's CDs regarding 2012, much of which is also in his book, 2012: The Return of Quetzalcoatl. My first thought, after so much discussion and teeth-gnashing throughout Feminist/Lefty Blogdonia: Should he be doing that? Does the shamanic tradition properly belong to him? Is he stealing?

Much of Pinchbeck's work is about psychedelics and spirituality, which we could rightly claim is the recorded tradition of another tribe altogether, a tribe with a recognized pedigree, in which he does belong: hippies. (Pinchbeck's mother was Joyce Johnson, paramour of Jack Kerouac.) But there is a particular way that hippies approached enlightenment, and that is not necessarily the way Native Americans did, even if the mescalito is the same.

From the blurb on Pinchbeck's recent CD, titled Emergence 2012: The Soundtrack for Global Evolution:

Take a musical journey into the lush soundscapes of the 2012 phenomenon with Emergence 2012. Inspired by Baktuns—or cycles of the classical Mayan calendar—this mind-bending music infuses psychoacoustic rhythms with the chants of ayahuasca shamans and natural harmonics found deep within the forests of South America. Created by sound healing visionary Alex Theory and Daniel Pinchbeck, bestselling author of 2012: The Return of Quetzalcoatl.

And now we come full circle, to that place where hippies encroached on Native American religion, as well as Eastern religions.

Or did they?

What if they feel they were directly asked by [fill in words for God here]? What if, in fact, this is The Truth? Does the religious activity still qualify as "encroachment"--or is this the end result of an exhaustive spiritual journey? Is it cultural appropriation and imperialism if one BELIEVES THEY HAVE FOUND THE TRUTH?

I don't think it is.

This is not appropriation, any more than learning another language is. I think it is endorsing another spiritual truth. It is LEAVING The Majors, for something one finds more suitable and real.

But I'll be honest: I get unaccountably nervous when I hear hippies employing ancient chants that were never theirs.

And then AGAIN: If white hippies with education and privilege announce that something is genuine and true, isn't that something of a revolutionary endorsement? This is the real thing, not what I was taught by my own culture--is a pretty powerful statement. (Maybe THE most powerful statement.)

Where does appropriation start, when we talk about religions? Because they are not simply cultural, they are accounts of life, creation, consciousness, truth and morality. They are VERSIONS of how we approach the divine.

Can we rightly say this is stolen, when it is being endorsed as the Truth, above and beyond The Majors?

What do you think?

~*~


[1] If you haven't read Cara's fabulous several-part series on racism, sexism and Yoko Ono, go over there RIGHT NOW and read the WHOLE THING. Great analysis.

[2] The title of this post is from the first lines of my favorite George Harrison song, What is Life? (And yes, I realize it was produced by Phil Spector, subject of much fulminating here at DEAD AIR.) Embedding has been disabled, she sighed once again...

The song was also employed to excellent advantage in the DEAD AIR favorite GOODFELLAS, which I also intend to blog about one of these days.

Borrowing and appropriating

Left: The CREEM magazine logo, which I loved and have been waiting for an excuse to use on my blog!



The newest scuffle in Blogdonia concerns Big Blogger Amanda Marcotte liberally ummm, borrowing from another blogger, notably a Woman of Color. And blogging about issues she usually doesn't know much about, that Brownfemipower has been blogging about since day one and in fact, presented in a recent speech (about feminism and immigration) at the Women, Action and Media conference. It's Led Zeppelin all over again!!!

Background: As a fresh-faced hippie tyke, I wrote record reviews for underground/alternative publications nobody remembers. (The most famous of these would be CREEM, where I only got three paragraphs.) Lots of these were leftist publications such as Detroit's RED TIDE and New York City's OVERTHROW. Imagine my shock when hard-core lefties jumped me over my blues-ignorance. Didn't I know that Led Zeppelin, Spooky Tooth (does ANYONE remember Spooky Tooth?), Humble Pie, Paul Butterfield, Mike Bloomfield, Cream, John Mayall, Eric Clapton, et. al. were doing OLD BLUES MUSIC, written and first performed by southern black delta folk?

My reaction: Huh?

And in fairness, this was the 70s, way before the internet. Nowadays, one could simply type in PAUL BUTTERFIELD BLUES BAND and learn all you needed to know about the early influences of these bands. But at the time, I actually had to study and go to the library. I felt like a fool; these were bands and musicians I idolized, and I didn't know squat about the actual roots of the music they were playing. Yet, I felt qualified to opine about the quality and the musicianship of their records. And I was published, too, as countless other clueless white rock critics were.

Paul Butterfield went to Woodstock and appeared in the subsequent hit movie. Albert King did not.

I am pleased to report that I learned from my study. I am one of the few people who have heard the original recording of When the Levee Breaks by Kansas Joe McCoy and Memphis Minnie. And you know what? I prefer LZ's. But I always refer to it as "the Led Zeppelin remake of the Memphis Minnie/Joe McCoy recording"--I never refer to it as a Led Zeppelin song. Ditto Whole Lotta Love--a morph of Willie Dixon's You need love.

Of course, they aren't exact replicas. Zeppelin was trying something novel--a sort of psychedelic bombastic blues. They succeeded, but they also 'forgot' to put the names of the original authors of the songs on their work, and that's why they ended up in court. The operative term is BLUES, which was invented by a certain group of people in a certain cultural moment and location. Yes, you get credit for the psychedelic bombast, but the blues came from someone else. (As much as you have, can't you give credit where it is due without going to freakin COURT????)

Unfortunately, we now have Amanda, doing what I would call a Led Zeppelin: What, me, worry? And let me make it very clear: I love Led Zeppelin. I refer to a whole process of cultural and racial appropriation, and how deep and insidious it is. As white people, we ARE largely unconscious of it, at first. That is how people like Amanda get by with the innocent routine, just like me at RED TIDE and Jimmy Page in court: Huh?

Hopefully, that time has passed. Huh don't cut it anymore. Huh is extremely fucked up. You have the ease, comfort and availability of the internet; you don't have to traipse across town to the library or earnestly trek to the local blues-hound's apartment and beg for copies of tapes, the way I did, and for that matter, the way Jimmy Page did. IT'S ALL RIGHT THERE AT YOUR FINGERTIPS.

And giving credit, too, is just as easy. You might try it.

Dead Air Church: The Feast of Divine Mercy

Left: Traditional holy card of Jesus and St Faustina, revealing the Divine Mercy devotion.


In Catholic tradition, today is the Feast of Divine Mercy. If you ask for forgiveness today, they HAVE to give it to you, no matter who you are or what you have done. Serial killers, fascist dictators, everyone. A cynic might say, you could accumulate horrible sins all year, then wait for the Sunday following Easter to confess, and thereby get a pass. (Not me, of course. I'd never say something like that.)

This is one of those "people's holidays"--which often feature Benediction, sacred litanies, the works. I've been to Divine Mercy masses many times, and used to say the chaplet regularly.

Some years ago, I frequented a chat room of hardcore trad-Catholics, several of whom turned out to be groupies of Mel Gibson's wacky dad. In this chat room, I first learned there have been sporadically-flaring controversies about St Faustina's diary and her account of events. Apparently, her diary contained what might be heresy or at least, some embarrassing nuttiness. (I have never read her diary, which is written in a simple-schoolgirl fashion that didn't hold my interest.)

What the traddies hated, in particular, was how St Faustina got bumped to the head of the saint-making list. Obviously, the homegirl mystic from Glogowiec, Poland, was a favorite of a certain other person from Poland, who made sure to canonize her in 2000. Hey, be true to your school, and all that! John Paul II was nothing if not fiercely loyal to Poland. This rankled the chat-room Gibsonoids to no end.

Looking up "St. Faustina" in the Catholic Encyclopedia, unbelievably, there is no entry for her, or separately for the Feast of Divine Mercy. Hmm. Since the death of her benefactor, has Polish-homegirl-with-weird-ideas been put on the back burner? (Reverend Wright, call your office!)

In a list of Feast days, I don't see the Divine Mercy listed.

The Catholic Church's great strength has always been to incorporate the people's folk piety (often called pagan) into the traditions of the church (often called co-optation and appropriation). Liberals hate this openly-imperialistic tendency, while conservatives hate that such pious folk devotions are often heretical, bizarre, magical-thinking and off-the-wall. Meanwhile, every such devotion and saint has its true believers, who are all over the lot economically, religiously (in style of worship), socially and even nationally. The tension between these forces is one of the most fascinating aspects of historic Catholicism. It is especially fascinating to witness such tension and consequent revisionism in my own lifetime, as I see that St Faustina, like Our Lady of Fatima, was exceedingly useful for the Cold War, but not as popular after the demise of the USSR.

In these famous incidents and individuals, we see a certain political populism joined with religious hope, as the people of Poland prayed for freedom.

St Faustina, pray for us.

~*~

And for Dead Air Church, we feature another famous plea for mercy, today.

Marvin Gaye - Mercy Mercy Me (The Ecology)