Black Tarot: African American Women and Divine Processes of Resilience

Abstract

This article explores African American women’s shifting of tarot from a European-dominated tradition into one that cultivates resilience for Black people. As a Black woman tarot reader, I offered free readings for respondents in exchange for mutual exploration of their thoughts on the practice. We discussed Black tarot’s efficacy in ancestral connection, navigation of career and larger life decisions, and healing from racial and gendered violence. Following this research, I concluded that through a process of creolization, or a ‘Hoodoo sensibility’ as one respondent termed it, Black women are reinterpreting a historically European practice to support their specific lived experience and needs. I argue that due to the reinterpretation of tarot within an Africana religious framework—what I’ve termed Black tarot—cultivates moments of resilience for Black women practitioners as a temporary experience of perseverance instead of a static state of being. As such, Black tarot acts as a resource for Black women cultivating this processual resilience by revealing the potentialities surrounding a situation, connecting the querent to her ancestors, and providing suggestions for possible courses of action. Additionally, because many of my respondents are actively engaged in social justice work, Black tarot not only impacts individual decisions but has the possibility to transform wider networks through community-based action.