white people and native religion

In her entry, Native Peoples and Cultural Genocide Brownfemipower (who almost considered dropping out of the blogosphere but has fortunately decided to grace us with her presence for a while longer) at the Woman of Color Blog looks at the relationship between the New Age movement and Native American spirituality. I'm generally sympathetic to the argument but had a different set of reactions and thoughts to some of her points. She says:

At no time did New Agers do any of the hard work of researching their own indigenous pasts to reclaim their own religious roots despite the fact that many European tribes were strongly based in earth-centered beliefs. No, New Agers went the easier route of "stealing" bits and pieces of other religions and claiming them as their own. For example, if you walk into a store catering to New Agers, you can find books and other memorabilia based in religions as far ranging as Buddhism to Taoism to the Kabbalah.

Although it's not good to appropriate any religion, the various religions that New Agers generally like to meddle with do manage to retain a large measure of control simply through their relative size. That is, a group of New Agers in Ann Arbor are not going to control how Hinduism changes or manifests itself in India. It simply isn't going to happen.

For Native peoples, however, this isn't the case. Representing only about one percent of the overall population of the United States, Native peoples are grossly outnumbered by New Agers when it comes to dealing with them on a tribe-by-tribe basis.

Firstly, I would say that some "New Age" folks, for example, followers of Asatru, Celtic Reconstructionism, or modern Druidism actually do look at spiritual paths associated with Pre-Christian Europe. So just to be fair, not all white New Agers are blatantly stealing from non-Western peoples. Some of them, really do try to stick to "their own" traditions. (But then that comes with its own problems as well. For example, some modern pagan groups have connections with white supremacists. They are pagan because they want to connect to a pre-Christian Europe "untainted" by Jewish or other influences.)

Secondly, in general, I would tend to question the implied link between ethnicity and religion. (e.g. see robert karimi) Even though it is important to avoid fanaticism, and one should cultivate a great sense of humility in terms of our own individual interpretations of texts, or our own specific understanding of the truth, nevertheless, religion still deals with matters of ultimate concern and absolute truth. (see not spiritual but religious) If Buddhism, or Islam, or Christianity are true, then they say something which is valid for all human beings; not just Asian people, or Arabs, or Africans. And similarly, if a non-Native or non-Indigenous person decides that the spiritual teachings of the the Australian Aborigines or Native Americans are meaningful for them, then I would think that people should have room to explore that possibility regardless of their background.

For me, the problem isn't in whether white people should try to practice non-Western religions. The real problem is that in general, whatever spiritual path we have chosen, we should all try to follow it thoughtfully, seriously, deeply, and self-critically. And there are obviously certain challenges, pitfalls, traps and temptations which will make it hard for anyone to follow a given path properly. The problem of white "New Agers" dabbling in non-Western cultures and co-opting them is only one temptation and one flavor of superficiality. (And someone in a different situation will face different obstacles). But I wouldn't want to rule out the possibility that a white person is capable of sincerely, thoughtfully self-critically following a non-Western path.

That said, I'm sure that Brownfemipower's criticisms apply to a large number of people in the New Age movement and I don't intend any of the above discussion to take away from that validity.