{"id":9108,"date":"2012-02-08T10:18:37","date_gmt":"2012-02-08T18:18:37","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/wildhunt\/?p=9108"},"modified":"2012-02-08T10:18:37","modified_gmt":"2012-02-08T18:18:37","slug":"questions-not-asked-in-santeria-ritual-cutting-story","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/wildhunt\/2012\/02\/questions-not-asked-in-santeria-ritual-cutting-story.html","title":{"rendered":"Questions Not Asked in Santeria Ritual Cutting Story"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<\/head>

Local<\/a> and national news outlets<\/a> are reporting on the case of a 4-year-old girl whose parents are being investigated by police after a daycare employee found lacerations on the girl\u2019s chest. The parents, and a neighbor who witnessed the event, claim it is a Santeria<\/a> ritual of health and protection for the child, not abuse.<\/p>\n

\n
Neighbor Nadeshda Ramirez. Who witnessed and underwent the ritual in question.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n

\u201cThe girl\u2019s parents told police that the cuts were part of a religious ritual. Channel 2\u2019s Mike Petchenik went to the girl\u2019s apartment off Greenhouse Drive and talked to a woman who said she actually witnessed the ritual that she contends is part of the Santeria religion.\u00a0\u201cThis religion is to help people, to help people get better, to protect people,\u201d said Nadeshda Ramirez.\u201d<\/em><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Avoiding the question of if this action constitutes child abuse, a matter for the authorities to decide, I\u2019d like to instead focus on what this story doesn\u2019t tell us. For example, is this a normative and routine part of an upbringing within Santeria, or was this ritual unusual and brought on by a crisis of some sort? Why didn\u2019t ABC News use its contacts to speak with an academic who studies Santeria, or a prominent figure within the faith? In the local video report, but not the written report, neighbor Nadeshda Ramirez claims the ritual is normal, and underwent it when she was seven years old<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\u201cI had it done when I was seven.\u201d Reporter: Did it hurt? \u201cIt did hurt, just a little bit.\u201d <\/em><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

This brings to mind a case somewhat similar to this, involving a 7-year-old girl, which made the news back in 2009<\/a>. In that case it wasn\u2019t Santeria, but Palo Mayombe, and the mother ended up pleading guilty to neglect and cruelty charges<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\u201cA mother who exposed her 7-year-old daughter to bloody religious initiation rituals in\u00a0Paterson<\/a> that included making her watch a chicken being sacrificed and feeding the girl its heart pleaded guilty in state court Monday to cruelty and neglect of a child. [\u2026]\u00a0In addition to being fed the chicken\u2019s heart, the rituals included making the girl witness the decapitation of a goat, and the scratching of a religious symbol into her skin.\u201d<\/em><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

The mother\u2019s attorney argued that the \u201cinitiation ritual at issue is as necessary to the faith as a Catholic baptism,\u201d<\/em> an argument the judge rejected. \u00a0Which brings me back to the original questions: was this really Santeria? Is this a normative ritual for children within that faith? How was it conducted?<\/p>\n

Media coverage, for better of for worse, shapes opinion and narrative. We live in an age where the secrecy of such rituals is difficult at best, especially when they involve children. Prominent figures within Santeria, and those who study the faith within academia, need to make their voices heard so that a nuanced portrait of Santeria, and related faiths, is presented. Certainly, journalists need to ask more questions, and dig deeper when reporting on a minority faith they don\u2019t understand, but it is also incumbent on practitioners to organize, and become more vocal in presenting their beliefs to a world that is increasingly learning to fear and resent them. If these instances aren\u2019t contextualized by experts and practitioners, then they will be contextualized by reporters and readers instead.<\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Local and national news outlets are reporting on the case of a 4-year-old girl whose parents are being investigated by police after a daycare employee found lacerations on the girl\u2019s chest. The parents, and a neighbor who witnessed the event, claim it is a Santeria ritual of health and protection for the child, not abuse. […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":6,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[878,1206,1754,2085],"class_list":["post-9108","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-religion","tag-georgia","tag-journalism","tag-palo","tag-santeria"],"yoast_head":"\nQuestions Not Asked in Santeria Ritual Cutting Story<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Local and national news outlets are reporting on the case of a 4-year-old girl whose parents are being investigated by police after a daycare employee\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/wildhunt\/2012\/02\/questions-not-asked-in-santeria-ritual-cutting-story.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta 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