Thievin'

I feel like a thief.
I used be a math tutor in a South Central Los Angeles high school (where I was the only pink person for miles) and found out that, when white people stole pieces of their culture, the black kids changed it immediately. When Santa Monica kids started wearing their baseball caps backwards, South Central kids couldn't turn theirs sideways fast enough.
We tainted their cool.
So, who am I to practice Vodou? It's West African, ten thousand years old and rich in symbolism that's honest about the human condition. Wise and cool. The opposite of Catholic.
Like Muslims, Christians and Jews (MCJs), Vodouissants argue. Should they accept the Christian symbols they adopted to mask their beliefs so the slave owners wouldn't kill them for practicing Vodou? Should white people be welcomed into their culture?
Unlike MCJs, they very, very rarely kill each other. We freak out when a priestess transports the skull of a long dead human on a plane. We don't freak out when we drop bombs on alive people from planes to spread democracy.
I love Vodou, I practice Vodou, I make Vodou dolls, and I'm very, very white. So I'm a thief.
There. I've said it.