How Hollywood Has Failed Black Witches, According to Real Black Witches

This is a great article that I found on Black Witches.

VIA Variety.com written by BreAnna Bell

For years, witchcraft has had a traditional look in popular entertainment — pointy hats, broomsticks, spells and potions — and usually white. Aside from a few supporting character examples, Black witchcraft has remained a blind spot in this witchy narrative. There’s no version of “Sabrina the Teenage Witch” for Black witches. So we asked the real members of this varied spiritual practice today how Hollywood can do better for Black witchcraft.

N’ganga Makhosi has been practicing hoodoo in Los Angeles her entire life, a tradition she learned from her grandmother, but says she’s never felt her practice was accurately represented in the media.

“It’s always either someone using curses, sacrificial animals, or calling on evil spirits,” she says.

Hoodoo, also known as conjuring or rootwork, is a cultural tradition practiced largely in the southern United States with ties to Yoruba religious spirits and deities, similar to voodoo and Santeria. As someone who’s active in community and spiritual healing, Makhosi finds a number of flaws in her culture’s presentation on the big and small screens.

“I would like to see more community” she tells Variety. “The [characters] are always a lone wolf, plotting somewhere in silence. I wish they would show the doctors, the teachers, the preachers. I wish there were more involvement from Black witches in the creation of these shows.”

When speaking specifically about Black witches being shown alongside white counterparts, Makhosi doesn’t mince words when she echoes a decades-long critique: Black witches are usually shown with evil tendencies and rarely get happy endings. She cites multiple examples — “Chilling Adventures of Sabrina’s” Rosalind Walker, “The Vampire Diaries’” Bonnie Bennett, “American Horror Story: Coven’s” Voodoo Queen Marie Laveau and Queenie — all of whom were left without a happy ending or whose storyline was wrought with racist plot lines. Even the CW’s “Charmed” reboot, which now follows the story of three Latinx sisters, falls short of the progressive light it aimed for, as Macy Vaughn (Madeleine Mantock) becomes an evil witch.