Black Love, Hoodoo, and Our Collective — Part One: Propaganda Noise

I am not sure when the shift happened. I just know that romance, protection, admiration, obsession, dedication, love, and pride in taking care of Black love has been polluted by social media.

The propaganda against our community is nothing new, but what is new is that it appears it has finally reached the nucleus of our community’s power: the Black man and the Black woman who together built, fought, and created the community with pride and respect. They are now portrayed as individuals who hate and despise each other.

The portrayal of children not being raised to respect themselves or others in our community floods those little screens they hold in their hands more than they hold onto their dreams and magic. Mediocrity has become the goal—the bar lowered by those who were not inspired enough to reach higher, and who now resent those who do. Excellence is reframed as bullying, discipline is mocked, and greatness is treated like arrogance. But I digress. That is for another time.

My focus is on the harmful influence social media and other forms of media have had on our community.

In the 1990s, Black women were told: All the Black men are locked up. They can’t be depended on for anything. They are criminals who father children with different women and leave women to raise them alone.

Then came the next narrative: the “Down Low Man.” Movies, books, and endless conversations pushed the image of Black men as deceptive, secretly living double lives, and putting the health of Black women at risk. The rise in HIV cases in the Black community was used to further drive suspicion, division, and fear between Black men and Black women.

Then came the next agenda: the push of the effeminate Black man as a dominant media image. If you did not support it, you were painted as hateful or ignorant. Even when some of these figures openly spoke about women with disdain, threatened Black women, or claimed superiority over women born as women, they were elevated through reality television and entertainment. Black women were often encouraged to defend narratives that disrespected them. Straight people were made cautious to speak against it for fear of labels.

Now we are in an era where Black love has become the exception instead of the norm. The message is that men no longer desire to be protectors, providers, faithful, or monogamous. Women are now told not only to bring things to the table, but to build the chair the man will sit in at the table.

One day Spirit told me: Put the phone down. Look at the world you actually live in off the phone. What do you see?

When I put the phone down and looked at reality, my mind came out of the lotus dream that is social media. I saw loving couples. I saw hardworking Black men. I saw nurturing Black women. I saw families trying to build. I saw people healing, surviving, striving, and loving in ways the algorithm never shows.

The screen had become a distortion mirror. It magnified dysfunction, rewarded division, and sold pain as entertainment. It made trauma look normal and peace look boring.

The Awakening of the Collective

I am not by any means saying that our community does not need to improve or need help to elevate back to our greatness that this country and others have tried to destroy. I do see how we have been manipulated, and how we need to gather our power, magic, and beauty back. The collective is waking up slowly.

My friend who followed the teachings of the Nation of Gods and Earths used to say that 85% are blind and do not know the truth, 10% know the truth but do not walk in it, and 5% know the truth, see it, and live it.

I feel that second tier has decreased, and the third tier is increasing. More of us are waking up. More of us are asking questions. More of us are refusing to sleep through our own lives.

So many of us are now leaving the constraints of colonized religion. I remember reading articles about Black women leaving the church and returning to the practices of their ancestors. We began to see the church differently and look at the book that was used to control our community with fear and promises of rewards after death.

For some of us, we always questioned those teachings. Not because we did not believe in a higher power, or morals, or goodness—but because something in our spirit knew something was off. Why should suffering in this life be accepted while rewards are postponed until death? Why were people told to be obedient while others prospered through their pain and labor? Why were ancestral practices condemned as evil while foreign systems demanded total loyalty?

Those same powers and practices came from Africa—lands rich in spiritual wisdom, minerals, abundance, science, and civilization long before colonizers arrived.

If their god was so great, why seek our resources? Why force worship? Why suppress drums, names, language, and spiritual systems?

They convinced many of us to leave our entities, our ancestors, and our power to take up theirs. And the most laughable part is while they demonized our practices publicly, many secretly sought audience with the so-called evil entities of our people in private.

What Our Ancestors Preserved

I am so proud of our people that even though chattel slavery tried to erase our practices through violence and manipulation, our ancestors were strong enough and resilient enough to keep our practices alive through secret rituals and beliefs hidden beneath the appearance of acceptance of the oppressor’s religion.

Our ancestors did not call it “Hoodoo.” It was simply our culture and way of life. The healers, the workers, the rootworkers, those that were touched, the herbalists—they moved through those times of persecution teaching the next generation our practices without giving it a name. It was, and still is, part of our culture and lineage.

Social media has now produced so many “High Priestesses,” “Conjuremen,” “Rootworkers,” and others cosplaying Hoodoo that it is almost as bad as the colonized religion. They have commercialized the practice and the culture. What was sacred has been turned into trends, aesthetics, and performance.

It is documented by people outside of the community because some inside the community are sharing bloodline practices with those who should not have access. When advised it is a closed practice, it is often met with anger—the anger of being told you are not invited to this. It is challenged not only by those outside, but by those inside who choose to open the gates.

Why Protection Matters

Why is it important to keep it closed? For me, I feel the collective needs to heal, be deprogrammed, and step back into our greatness and power. To do this, we must focus on us and us only without the constant threat of sabotage from groups that have proven trust is not something to be extended lightly at this time.

We have too much work to do, and it needs to be done with the energy of those of the culture and lineage.

I personally will protect my ancestor knowledge, power, and guidance. I will not share my lineage with those outside the bloodline. Those who feel they can open ancestral gifts and powers to those outside their bloodline may eventually see the consequences of doing so. That is their choice and their right.

I, however, choose to practice with respect to my Spiritual Team and my ancestors.

Taking Back What Is Ours

I want the collective to elevate. I want us to remember who we are. I want us to gather our beauty, discipline, power, and wisdom back. I want us to heal enough to see clearly again.

I want us to take back what is ours.

Because what was taken was never fully lost. It survived in grandmothers’ kitchens. It survived in gardens. It survived in whispered prayers. It survived in dreams, intuition, herbs, roots, songs, memory, and bloodline.

And now, many are waking up to remember.