Banning Black Gods

This is an excellent book, a very quick read especially considering it's about legal challenges faced by members of ADRs (African Diaspora Religions). The legal persecution (on top of the social othering) of these marginalized religious practices is horrific a continues to this day. My one (soft) critique is that the author emphasizes that these are religions -- as antithetical to 'magical practices'. While I appreciate that, this is a deeply problematic position for those who do maintain magical practices, particularly people of color. The result of this approach is that "if you are BIPoC, you can practice religion, but you can't practice magic" which further stigmatizes magical practice (and the difference between magical, religious, and spiritual practices is functionally nebulous. I'd suggest a better legal argument (that would solve a whole ton of problems in the U.S.) is simply, "My body: my rules."