(1) Thank you to all of you wonderful people who answered my questions about Kemeticism, godspouses, and such.

(2) I’ve been afraid – well, more like concerned – about what’s going on ever since I came onto Tumblr and began blogging AS someone who is a modern, independent Kemetic. And finally, it happened: Kemetics are being accused of cultural appropriation.

(3) But, like something Devo wrote (I think it was Devo), I didn’t choose Kemeticism. The deities I am close to, each of the three sought me out, (I’ve no idea why); I didn’t sit down one day and think, “Oh it would be SO cool to worship god/desses from Ancient Egypt, let me see who I think is just so NEAT!” (Note: I’m absolutely NOT passing judgment on anyone who MAY have done something like that.) Should I have distanced myself, saying, “No! Bast you may have entered my life, but you can’t do that! Even if you ARE a deity, for me to believe in you, worship you, and learn from you would be appropriation! So, Bast, you must leave now, for you belong only in the lives of those who are the true descendants of the Ancient Egyptians who worshipped you. Go away!”

To be clear: I don’t want to, nor do I mean to, appropriate anything from anyone whom I shouldn’t. But, who gets to be in charge of designating who is “allowed” to be Kemetic Nd who is not allowed? What if a lone individual in a primarily Buddhist region decides on his own to become Christian? Is he appropriating that religion? Is that religion open only to the descendants of those to whom Jesus preached (if one believes in Jesus, that is)?

Why would Kemeticism now be a closed religion? Why couldn’t someone whose ancestors never once passed through Egypt in thousands of years choose to adopt modern, reconstituted, reconstructed Kemetic beliefs? Who is harmed by that choice? I just don’t understand. If Kemeticism is a form of appropriation, then who exactly is allowed to participate in the beliefs and such of the religion? Or, did Kemeticism simply “die out” with the ancients, and become a relic, a closed, walled-off, obsolete belief system?

I don’t understand.