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A review by qheretic
Apocalyptic Witchcraft by Peter Grey
1.0
I did not finish this one because within the first 20 pages, Grey compared the radicality of Witches to the radicality of Tupac, describing him as an “n-word thug” railing against the racism of the American system. I’m quite disappointed in Peter Grey who decided that he would unambiguously evoke a violent slur that would risk alienating his audience because there is no way around the fact that many Black folks really don’t want to see that word casually thrown around and wholly uncontextualized to describe us. And we have made this quite clear over decades. Further that the editors of Scarlet Imprint didn’t think that if they were going to let it slide that it shouldn’t have been further contextualized and not just a slur casually thrown around. Probably has something to do with the fact that Peter Grey is the founder, which unfortunately makes it feel that he must be above reproach at his imprint, when clearly he needed to be informed that this was a problematic choice.
I got this to read as I’m planning a performance about witchcraft and environmentalism. It was a recommendation from a store that I thought I respected but this has really spoiled that relationship, as so far I have seen no critical engagement from the larger pagan community with the text or Grey about what is just casual slur usage for the sake of a point. Black people’s trauma is not just a prop for being utilized to spice up your argument.
I’ve seen several witches talk about their love for this book without so much as a comment about how the first 10 minutes of reading we are presented with this.
We need to do better witches. We need to do better. This goes for any and everybody, but especially a community that is involving itself in so called “activism.” That unfortunately rings hollow when we don’t hold our members accountable for violence that is the foundation of the things we claim to be hexing the patriarchy for.
I got this to read as I’m planning a performance about witchcraft and environmentalism. It was a recommendation from a store that I thought I respected but this has really spoiled that relationship, as so far I have seen no critical engagement from the larger pagan community with the text or Grey about what is just casual slur usage for the sake of a point. Black people’s trauma is not just a prop for being utilized to spice up your argument.
I’ve seen several witches talk about their love for this book without so much as a comment about how the first 10 minutes of reading we are presented with this.
We need to do better witches. We need to do better. This goes for any and everybody, but especially a community that is involving itself in so called “activism.” That unfortunately rings hollow when we don’t hold our members accountable for violence that is the foundation of the things we claim to be hexing the patriarchy for.