On June 10th, many Americans held a moment of silence for Bridget Bishop, the first person hanged for witchcraft during the Salem Witch Trials on this day in 1692. The colony’s legal system had no interest in facts, proof, or logic. Anyone accused was the next potential victim (see Schiff, 2015). Only those who refuse to take on the label of witch (aka admit guilt) were the ones killed. To this day, we still see women killed worldwide simply for the accusation of witchcraft (Suuk & Kaledzi, 2020).
We should be a society learning from its lessons, moving forward, repairing wounds. Yet, we have a recent national leader who claimed every criticism toward him was a witch hunt. In fact, Vox reported that Trump had used the term over 120 times just up to 2018, and just in response to one investigation (Cassese, 2018). The GOP continues to use this term whenever they want to delegitimize an investigation.
We have taken one of the darkest moments of our own history and ignored the actual suffering of those who were sentenced to death for witchcraft. Witchcraft, considered a legitimate religious path today, was enough to kill someone in 1692. Crying witch hunt is a slap in the face to all who were murdered during witch hunts, a cultural appropriation that ignores the lived experiences of those who practice witchcraft worldwide.
Here we are in 2021, watching Pride Month unfold as corporations roll out their own rainbow marketing campaign. Hickey (2019) even describes the feeling of being tricked by corporations that don’t support the LGBTQIA community but feel entitled to use rainbows during Pride Month to boost business. This pink dollar, the money spent by the LGBTQIA community, adds up to 1 trillion dollars. That’s a lot of rainbow dough.
So again, we have taken one of the most vulnerable communities in our nation and decided it’s okay to profit off of their suffering. Pride Month began as a protest, an uprising against the routine raids on gay gatherings in Greenwich Village (Walsh, 2019). The Stonewall Uprising in June of 1969 marked the beginning of Pride Month, not rainbow colored mayonnaise.
In a time when “42% of LGBTQ youth seriously considered attempting suicide in the past year, including more than half of transgender and nonbinary youth” (Trevor Project, 2021), we cannot ignore the appropriation. We cannot allow others to take possession of the language, imagery, and identity of those who have been oppressed.
Zacharias Sexual Abuse Center commits to stading alongside the LGBTQIA community all twelve months of the year. We are here for support after sexual abuse. We are here for questions about sexuality and gender. We are here for parents and allies. We proudly participated in two Pride events last weekend, with a third coming up soon. We strive to be visible in the community as a source of support and services needed by vulnerable communities. So no rainbows in this post. No line of flags. Just support.
Written by Kristin Jones, PhD, EdM, Outreach Supervisor.
All ZCenter blog posts are written by state certified staff, interns, and volunteers. For questions on authorship or content, please email kjones@zcenter.org.
Sources:
Cassese, E. (2018). A Political History of the Term “Witch Hunt.” Vox. https://www.vox.com/mischiefs-of-faction/2018/10/31/18047208/trump-witch-hunt
Hickey, A. (2019). Have You Been Tricked by Rainbow Washing? Medium. https://medium.com/@audreyhickey/have-you-been-tricked-by-rainbow-washing-920b5f91377f
Schiff, S. (2015). The Witches: Salem, 1692. New York: Little, Brown and Company.
Suuk, M. & I. Kaledzi . (2020). Witch Hunts: A Global Problem in the 21st Century. Deutsche Welle. https://www.dw.com/en/witch-hunts-a-global-problem-in-the-21st-century/a-54495289
Walsh, C. (2019). Stonewall Then and Now. The Harvard Gazette. https://news.harvard.edu/gazette/story/2019/06/harvard-scholars-reflect-on-the-history-and-legacy-of-the-stonewall-riots/
The Trevor Project. (2021). National Survey on LGBTQ Youth Mental Health. https://www.thetrevorproject.org/survey-2021/?utm_source=Master+Contacts&utm_campaign=f15c9a66b5-EMAIL_CAMPAIGN_2021_05_20_NationalSurvey&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_e8d7ceff05-f15c9a66b5-33647318§ion=SuicideMentalHealth