THE CONJURE IS POLITICAL

The Conjure Woman is has always been racialized and vilified; depicted as a trickster, devious and transgressive. But the reality of conjure—and all the Black folk magic practitioners under it’s umbrella, including root workers, hoodoo doctors, and priestesses—is a far cry from that. This week on Beyond Belief, I spoke with Dr. Kinitra Brooks, acclaimed scholar of black feminist theory and horror. Along with two colleagues, she’s originator of conjure feminism, to sort fact from fiction.

In the US, Black conjurers—an umbrella term for diasporic folk magic practitioners—have historically been labelled as tricksters: deceptive, transgressive, chaotic, vengeful, and abiding by no codes except their own. Informed by anti-Blackness and colonialism, these depictions were and are designed to obscure and deny the history and reality of Black spirituality and its power. 🔮 🔥⁠⠀

As Dr. Brooks she puts it during our interview, “these Black women are philosophers. They are building and operating within their own cosmological structures. They are creating their worlds. These are worlds that exist ~outside~ of Western hegemony.” 🌈🐍⁠⠀

We explore the history of conjure, it’s reclamation, and how we can all connect with our ancestral traditions to help dismantle white supremacy. And because Dr. Brooks is also a Beyoncé scholar (!) there’s also a little on how the artist is a shining modern example of connecting to one’s lineage in order to write oneself into being, here and now. ⁠⠀

Listen below and subscribe to Beyond Belief, wherever you get your podcasts.

The Conjure is Political
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