“In an interview posted to social media, Black Lives Matter (BLM) Co-Founder Patrisse Cullors, along with BLM Los Angeles Co-Founder Melina Abdullah, discussed the ‘spiritual’ component of the movement, explaining the practices and ‘rituals’ performed to remember and ‘invoke’ the spirits of deceased African Americans. ‘We speak their names and you kind of invoke that spirit, and then their spirits actually become present with you,’ Abdullah, a professor at California State University, stated during the discussion hosted by Fowler Museum at UCLA. Cullors said, ‘In my tradition, you offer things that your loved one who passed away would want, whether it’s honey or tobacco or things like that,’ she said, referring to the creation of an ‘ancestor altar,’ which is sometimes practiced in African cultures. As previously reported, in 2018, Abdullah poured libation and summoned the spirits of a number of deceased African American leaders during an event at Hollywood United Methodist Church. She instructed those gathered to declare ‘ashe’ as she made declarations and poured bottled water into a plant. According to the website yagbeonilu.com, ‘ashe’ is an ‘African philosophical concept through which the Yoruba of Nigeria conceive the power to make things happen and produce change.’ Abdullah said during her recent interview with Cullors, ‘When we first started, I remember us going to the ocean and doing these rituals and really feeding our spirit.’ As previously reported, Black Lives Matter was formed by Cullors, Alicia Garza and Opal Tometi in 2013 in response to the acquittal of George Zimmerman in the shooting death of teenager Trayvon Martin. Cullors is a self-described ‘queer’; Garza identifies as lesbian; and Tometi is a self-described feminist. The BLM site’s ‘What We Believe’ page also outlines, ‘We foster a queer‐affirming network. When we gather, we do so with the intention of freeing ourselves from the tight grip of heteronormative thinking, or rather, the belief that all in the world are heterosexual (unless s/he or they disclose otherwise).’”
“There shall not be found among you any one that maketh his son or his daughter to pass through the fire, or that useth divination, or an observer of times, or an enchanter, or a witch, Or a charmer, or a consulter with familiar spirits, or a wizard, or a necromancer. For all that do these things are an abomination unto the LORD: and because of these abominations the LORD thy God doth drive them out from before thee” (Deuteronomy 18:10-12).
“Black Lives Matter Co-Founder,” ChristianNews.net, Aug. 28, 2020