My Perspective and #TarotsoWhite

It begins around 25:11 when one of my favorite YouTube personalities Kelly-Ann Maddox talks about #TarotsoWhite and the “overwhelming lack of racial diversity in tarot and oracle decks.” Maddox covers it all. She acknowledges white privilege, too much whiteness in the human depictions on tarot decks, disappointment in the fetishization of people of color in the rare times they are actually portrayed (she gives the example of the Nubian queen), and wonders what it is like for us people of color to spend untold amounts of money on tarot and oracle decks only to flip through them to see that you’re not being represented.

Well. The reality is we’re used to it. Or at least I am. It wasn’t until around 2000 that my community was represented in the media beyond sage-y old kung-fu masters with broken English and fortune cookie wisdom, me-love-you-long-time, dragon ladies, geishas, or know-it-all nerds. I mean I…