Draft:Neo-Hoodoo

Neo-Hoodoo is a term coined by Ishmael Reed to describe a postcolonial philosophy and behaviour with origins in the syncretic traditions of Hoodoo.

Meaning

Coined by Ismael Reed in 1970, the term "Neo-Hoodoo" celebrates the practices of rituals, folklore, and spirituality in the Americas beyond Christianity and traditional religion. "Neo-Hoodoo believes that every man is an artist and a priest. You can bring your own creative ideas to Neo-Hoodoo." Neo-Hoodoo celebrates Hoodoo in a way that Black practitioners fully express. It is often described as "...terms that respect the syncretism of Voudon-based religious systems". It can be seen as a way of doing things that provides "the Black Artist with a vehicle to merge art with politics without compromising". Neo-Hoodoo is a behavior that gives "'...non-Western voices which express life and creativity' intrude on or break the 'controlling patterns' of the 'dominant culture'". This is a radical form of Black writing that inspires resistance to suppression in the literary world.

The ideas expressed in "A Portrait of the Artist as a Shadow of His Former Self" by Kerry James Marshall are compared to Ishmael Reed's Neo-Hoodoo concept of balancing invisibility as visual. The painter describes his work ethic for the painting as being to "...bring that figure close to being a stereotypical representation without collapsing completely into stereotype". The postcolonial theory of Hoodoo and the fact that Hoodoo is neo-African still leads to assumptions that it is uncivilized. Reed's Hoodoo aesthetic celebrates syncretism as a religious cultural practice, countering Western Civilization's desire to universalize itself through Christianity.

In literature

Another writer who focused on African American spirituality in their literature is Ishmael Reed. Reed criticizes the erasure of African Americans from the American frontier narrative, as well as exposing the racist context of the American dream and the cultural evolution of the military-industrial complex. He explores the role of Hoodoo in forging a uniquely African American culture. He writes about the Neo-HooDoo aesthetic in African American culture, such as dance, poetry, and quilting. His book Mumbo Jumbo has many references to Hoodoo. Mumbo Jumbo has been considered to represent the relationship between the Westernized African American narrative and the demands of the Western literary canon, and the African tradition at the heart of Hoodoo that has defied assimilation. In his book Yellow Back Radio Broke-Down, the protagonist, the Loop Garoo Kid, acts as an American frontier traveler with the Hoodoo church and curses 'Drag Gibson', the monocultural white American landowner.