When a video of Beyoncé front row at Pharrell's Louis Vuitton fashion show hit the internet, folks went crazy. The reason? The singer set her purse on the floor between her feet. Here's why that's long been a no-no for our people.
Hoodoo is often dismissed as superstition, but it’s really an herbal-based, healing, ancestral practice. Like many African Diasporic Religions, it’s been demonized by anti-Blackness, forcing Hoodoos to hide in plain sight. But many of us have retained Hoodoo-isms for generations without even realizing it, including the taboo against putting a purse on the floor.
The belief is that setting a purse on the floor means the owner's money is going out the door. For generations, people have avoided floor-sat purses to protect financial abundance. But this is so much more than a "superstition."
From Harriet Tubman's dreams, which inspired her to help enslaved people escape in her waking life, to Frederick Douglass, who wore a mojo bag and kept a notoriously violent enslaver from whipping him.
Whether you believe in them or not, these aren't merely myths; much of Black spiritual practice consists of ancestrally rooted beliefs or tools that have aided our survival throughout history. And there’s nothing superstitious about that.