I'm not sure what the deal is lately, but as of this initial writing I have all in the last month been getting a lot of inquiries regarding my ethnicity and race -- some of them rather rude, too. (Edit: The cause was found to be some guy's YouTube video where he was criticizing my books with racist ad hominem attacks and accusing me of being "some white person" without having done any looking into the matter.)
So, let's just put this out there for everyone who is questioning the matter:
Did you know a person can be TWO races, or even MORE?! It's even COMMON in some places! We ought to start filming Two Girls One Cup style reactions of people vomiting as they learn this treacherous idea of Two Races One Person.
My family is really into the study of genealogy and as a result I have a good knowledge of my ridiculously complicated ancestry. No joke, we have the family lines traced all the way back to Ancient Egypt. But as far as the last 200 years go, I'm basically English, German and Spanish (i.e. American Southwestern Spanish; which tends to involve American Indian blood as well. We often don't like "Latinx" because that suggests being from South America instead of from what is now US territory. "New Mexican" is basically its own ethnicity).
Got that? Okay.
I am not black, I don't think I could be called black by any means*; but I do have black ancestry courtesy of an experiment that went on about 1,000 ago called Moorish Spain (DNA tests say my markers are North African, Benin and Togo.) I bring it up because that knowledge means I cannot claim not to have black ancestry; but as far as we know nobody in the family's been black since before the time of Queen Isabella.
Also in the 18th century we hit New Mexico Indians including Zuni and Apache. That's very common in the part of the country my family is from. Fun fact: New Mexico is one of the few states where minorities are the majority.
Culturally, I'm pretty much Anglo. Grew up at the beach in California. Moved to New Mexico in my teens where I picked on at a school of majority hispanics of "my own race" (the idea that race is any designation of unity is bullshit, thanks for coming to my TED talk).
Now, that said, anybody who wants to write me to threaten me that "God will punish [me]" for studying and practicing hoodoo without being adequately black can get to fuck. I doubt such folks are trying to be nice, but they don't seem like they understand that that's as messed up as saying black people shouldn't be allowed to perform classical music because it's not "their" music, or shouldn't be allowed to speak English because it "belongs" to another culture that they're incapable of understanding due to birth circumstance. Or maybe it's a case of "white people do this to us" and so it's seen as fine because all white people are the same -- even when they're not exactly white.
I'm not saying hispanics etc. can't be racist, but if you're using my "white race" as the sole reason to discredit me, you're not just a racist SOB but you're also barking up the wrong tree.
Nobody is happy to be told that their race is a reason to be expelled from an activity they enjoy or a belief they believe in, and the ideal in present-day American society is that nobody should be.
Furthermore, contrary to the publicity many websites and books are giving about hoodoo as being an "African-American practice" (and which I'll admit I parroted early on in my writings, since that's the information I was being taught) by the time the word hoodoo actually appears in the English language, the practice was already about a third European in its rituals, and in modern popular practice is even moreso. (The mojo and gris-gris bags are just about the only remaining purely African ritual in common use, and even those are very corrupted with European and Native American influences at this point.) By the time the word hoodoo came to be, both blacks and whites were practicing it. I'm not saying it's not black, but it's not non-white or anti-white. In fact, it probably really is the only spiritual practice that's "racially suited" to someone like me who has about 57 different "ethnicities" over time, thank you very much.
Voodoo/Vadou/Vodun is another matter. If you are practicing the religious form of it (which I haven't studied in depth and I do not practice) then there could be something to racially segregating it; I've read arguments to that effect, but really I don't know and it's not a subject of much interest to me at this time. I only ever claim to practice voodoo in deference to a general public that doesn't always know the slight and arguably non-existent difference between voodoo and hoodoo, and I endeavor to see that it's stated in a context that quickly makes clear that what I really practice is the American hoodoo folk magic.
I think that's all I need to say on this matter to address the concerns that have lately been raised about my background.
-TF
*Though some people of late have been arguing the Queen Charlotte of England was black. I am descended from the same Portuguese family that are said to make her so. Thus -- if Queen Charlotte is black, then so am I?