The Root Worked
Hoodoo, Hostile Environments, and the Ancestors Who Pulled Me Out
Hey Family,
In my last few essays, I’ve been writing about code. Malignant code. The operating system of anti-Blackness that runs whether we ask it to or not. I wrote about a check-cashing place that called the police instead of the production office. About Cyrus Carmack, Belton shot in the back for a bottle of water. About Trayvon Martin walking home.
I wrote about the simulation. How it doesn’t need you to be guilty, just Black.
But I realized something as I was writing: I was only telling half the story. The half about what the system does to us. I wasn’t telling the half about what we do back.
So let me tell you about Hoodoo. About rootwork. About the ancestors who pulled me out of a burning truck before it caught fire. About the on-set propmaster who hated me, the white woman with a baby on the way, the fix that was in, and the candles I lit anyway.
Because if the simulation is running malicious code, then Hoodoo is the antivirus. And I’m still here to tell you about it.
A few years ago, I did a thread on Twitter about the importance of Black folks using Hoodoo and other ancestral spiritual practices as a means of staying safe in hostile environments. At the time that I wrote that thread, I was freshly out of a hostile work environment on the set of a show called “A Crowded Room” starring Zendaya’s husband, Tom Holland. I was working in the props department as part of their on-set crew, and my God, did the on-set propmaster hate my ass!
The job started cool, and at first, she seemed to like me. The problems started when her friend, the on-set assistant propmaster, aka the truck person, started to feel intimidated by my presence. When I signed on to the job, the initial plan was for me to shadow the truck person to learn the role because they had a scheduled break that would be happening while we were in the middle of shooting. The issue became apparent when I was helping the truck person do something one day, and she said, “Wow, you are going to be so much better than me at this job. They’re going to want to keep you.” That was the first red flag. The next one was the truck person learning she was with child. Well, baby, that changed the whole game because if there’s one thing whiteness is going to do, it’s going to make sure there are resources for their people! Not only was I a threat to this woman’s pride, but I was about to stop her bag. The fix was in. They were going to get my ass outta there by any means, and things got interesting.
Not only was I good at my job, but I was also personable, fashionable, and well-liked. At the time, I had short acrylics that I would get painted with elaborate designs. As someone who works with their hands, onychmancy is one of my favorite forms of magic. My nail tech and I were locked in, and I looked forward to my biweekly nail appointments. Well, imagine my surprise when I started breaking nails down to the quick. In the course of the 8 or 9 weeks that I was on the job, I broke no fewer than 6 nails. At least 3 of the breakages occurred in my final week.
The animosity coming from the onset of the propmaster was palpable. It had gotten so bad that people from other departments began to check on me, asking if I was okay. I felt fine, but it was getting hard to engage with my supervisor, and she was hellbent on being as nasty as possible to me. One weekend, I made a trip to the botanica and stocked up on candles and herbs. I made some baths, refreshed my altars, and topped up my protection work. One of the prayers I made specifically asked that I be protected in this workspace because I really wanted this job.
I was fired a few days later.
As I stood in an open field with the on-set propmaster, the actual propmaster, and the unit production manager of “A Crowded Room”, I felt the weight of 1000 ancestors behind me. The on-set propmaster began her spiel by telling me that I was unhappy and that, as a result of my unhappiness, I was being let go. It was so surreal, but I had to laugh. This pitiful, miserable excuse of a woman was trying to gaslight me in front of her superiors, and I just took it on the chin. I wasn’t the only person who left the crew that day, though - as a result of her antics, two of my colleagues decided that it was their last day as well. They felt I was being unfairly targeted, and they decided it was against their moral compass to stay on the job. I didn’t ask them to do that, but it did send a message.
While heading back to the truck to collect my belongings, the propmaster gave me a whole speech about how great I was, about how he was sorry that this was going down the way it was going down, etc. Honestly, I thought he was full of it, but at that point, who cares? I had asked for protection, and my ancestors had decided that the best protection was removal from the situation altogether.
Months later, I was asked to be the assistant propmaster of a medical show by a close colleague of mine. When I asked him who the propmaster was, I instantly cringed; I would be working for the same man who let that woman fire me. At that point, I decided that I was going to accept the job and do my very best because I wanted to prove to myself that I could do it. The propmaster looked so sheepish when I came into the office on my first day. I spent the entirety of the job being so annoyingly competent and cheerful that he apologized to me many times over. I didn’t give a fuck about his apology. I just enjoyed seeing him squirm because he knew he had done me wrong on the last job, and his conscience didn't deserve peace.
I’m saying all of this to say, this is just one instance where Hoodoo, rootwork, and my spiritual beliefs saved my life. The nature of my previous vocation was so dangerous at times. We worked on trucks, with heavy machinery, with vehicles, in all types of inclement weather. We spent 12-14 hours a day, 5 days a week, for months on end doing work that was physically and mentally demanding. One person being careless, inebriated, or passive-aggressive would result in bodily harm or death.
On many levels, you have to trust your coworkers with your life, and working with people who are racist and have disdain for you is dangerous as hell. At one point, the electrical panel caught fire on the gate of the truck, and thank God I wasn't inside because I would have died or been severely injured. When the key electric on set came by to inspect the damage, he was appalled and made it his business to tell my boss how close to calamity we had all been. When we wrapped the job weeks later, the charred electrical panel remained. Despite this man collecting a hefty weekly kit rental for his truck on top of being paid a salary, he had no interest in making it safe for me. This is why my folks ultimately got me the fuck up outta production for good. As bad as I wanted to advance my career, I would have never been given the respect, care, and consideration that I would've needed to thrive. It’s taken me a full year and some to understand exactly how dangerous my old job was and how hostile people were towards me. I’m still unpacking traumas.
So yeah, Hoodoo saved my life. My ancestors saved my life. My Congos saved my life. My Orishas saved my life. There was no way I’d be here to tell these stories if I hadn’t been working my roots, lighting my candles, and saying my prayers. Some of us have no choice but to work or send our children into hostile spaces for the sake of career and education. However, I do believe we need to seriously consider the methods and rituals we may need to employ to stay safe in these spaces. I don’t think anyone consciously wants to stay in a hostile environment, but when the world at large is anti-Black, I think most folks try to stick with the devils they know. The sad part is, there are devils everywhere, and sometimes we don’t realize how bad a situation is until it’s too late. This Karmelo Anthony verdict and sentencing is a tough pill to swallow because it highlights how quickly a hostile situation can turn deadly. Had Karmelo not defended his life, he could have easily been overwhelmed and beaten to death. There is no winning in some of these situations, but I do hope that it sparks the conversations that we need to have about spirituality being our first line of defense. I’ll come back to this discussion, but I wanted to share this story with y'all.
I’ve been lying low these last few months because school was kicking my ass, but I’m finally ready to pop back out and share more of my thoughts and work with the community. I have some new merch around a conversation I started at my booth at the Brooklyn Brujeria Festival last fall. Hoodoo is a Closed Practice, a cute little reminder for the folks who do this work and honor our ancestors in specific ways. I also have a 1800-EGGUN design that’s based on the skits I started doing last summer. All in all, I’m just trying to get my creative juices flowing again while unpacking some of these feelings that I’m having regarding our current condition as Black folks in America. It’s just the tip of the iceberg. Let me cook. Everything pictured is available for purchase on the site. I appreciate everyone who’s already placed orders, and I can’t wait to show y’all all the other cool stuff I've got cooking up.
I missed your writing, it's great that you are back! I'm also glad you took some time to adjust to school. Thank you for sharing your experiences and insights with your readership, I always learn something new after I read one of your essays. Also, I love the new apparel! I'm going to make a purchase when I'm able to.