Power is what creates both colonized and decolonized conditions. Power is what creates Ifa and all other indigenous cultural technologies. And power is what we need to harness to do anything meaningful in this current phase of humanity.

Once you figure out your power, everything is possible.

And what is it? It's power. Power, as I define it, is the ability to create change. And everything in this world relies on power to exist. Indigenous ways of knowing and being are just ancient and complex ways of capturing power, enstorifying them, and passing them on.

This distinction is important because everyone's tryna decolonize something these days. Tryna decenter, debunk, deny, de-something. Making the negation of something your goal is not sustainable. All of that stuff is a side effect of the same potent thing that outlives religion.

Simply put, what people call traditional african religions are just a way of life. It's just the way we be. It's the way we eat, the way we name our children, the way we sing, dance, and mark the seasons. The way we know who we been, who we are, who we tryna be.

So if there are no such things as religions in the Africas, except the ones enforced by the colonial incident, then Ifa and others are not religions, but something else, something way more potent than a religion that requires the force of an army to remain.

We can see there is not one Africa, there are many Africas. And that there are no such things as religions in the context of indigenous communities.

In the past, this was fine because access to the Africas was occluded by empire. But we have since breached borders by way of the internet, and we can see each other much more clearly now.

And whenever someone west of the Atlantic ocean references traditional african religions, they are more likely than not speaking about Ifa. It's highly unlikely t hey are referring to any of the millions of so-called traditional religious found through the Africas.

I say there's no such thing as traditional african religions because religion is a necessary construct of the catholic church to create a hierarchy of humans. And also because tradition implies a sort of temporal stasis that is just not true of any culture.

Me, in 2002:

Being a 5th generation Black American and hearing the slavery is “not that bad” conversation piss me off…I can trace back more generations but the history is confusing..

My fellow olds, all those young people you chastise for saying “vinyls” are helping to keep your local record store open. And all those young people saying “blog” instead of “blog post” are helping to keep independent publishing alive.

Language evolves. So can you.