This post was originally published as a thread of tweets on Twitter. The content has been edited for gramma errors and for clarity.
I need to talk about how white astrologers use the tropical zodiac to uphold white supremacy and to erase the narratives of black historical figures. I’ve seen it done to Muhammad Ali and Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. in the recently. And the latter really set ablaze a fire in me. The historical context of the legacies of both men have been erased by tropical astrology, and white astrologers.
By designating the nature of Dr. King’s & Muhammad Ali’s work as actually conciliatory and some how “Venusian”, they have erased the truly radical essence of their self determination and strength of will.
Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.
Here we have Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.’s Sidereal birth chart with Aries rising and Moon and Venus in Aquarius. If you watched my IG live this morning then you know why this Aquarius is so very important. I JUST, this morning, talked about how and why Aquarius represents Black peoples’s self determination and self possession that reached a peak during the 1960’s Civil Rights Movement. And LOOK at MLK embodying that in his chart.
The idea that MLK was some kind of pandering proponent of love and light is a white washing of his legacy that I’m observing white astrologers all too easily promulgate. This is why we MUST decolonize astrology, and I say we do it by embracing the sidereal zodiac.
Aries rising in MLK’s chart says, “I do because I can.” Aries is the sign of autonomy, and autonomy means ‘self law’, as opposed to consensus law which is the realm of Libra. The only way he could do what he did was by rejecting the codification of blackness as illegal. That’s not Venusian in any way. None whatsoever.
And there is that Saturn in Sagittarius in Dr. King’s chart. “How shall I make my life and this world a LIVING testimony of my intentions & convictions?” There, right there is the answer. With Jupiter in Aries in the Ascendant MLK’s intentions are to embrace and embody an autonomy that rejects any law that strips him of his freedom and strength of will.
This rebellion is not love and peace at any costs. It is an active embrace of the RIGHT to be. If you don’t understand how radical that is, then you don’t know history. If you don’t understand the violence and trauma his body experienced, then you don’t know history.
Muhammad Ali
Now, let’s look at the chart of Muhammad Ali. And what is that there again? ARIES! Not only Mars in it’s own sign in the most visible part of the chart, but Saturn also in Aries. Saturn is in charge of Sun, Moon, Mercury, and Venus all in Capricorn. Let’s talk about it!
The idea that the brash, bravado, strength, and arrogance of Muhammad Ali is some how signified by Mars and Saturn in Saturn in tropical Taurus is absolutely ridiculous. It’s ludicrous and insulting, tbh.
Muhammad Ali and his Saturn in fall in Aries says, “the walls & ceilings that define the limits of my world are not determined by the consensus (Libra). I do!”
Muhammad Ali and his Saturn in fall in Aries says,” I am Black, definitively. I reject that name of the man who claimed ownership of my ancestors. I am not Cassius Clay; I am Muhammad Ali! I embrace my body and my strength as my own. AND YOU CAN’T TELL ME NOTHING.”
Muhammad Ali and his Saturn in fall in Aries says, “I am the biggest, the fastest, the best, and I will win because I can. Who gon stop me!”
Please, miss me with the Taurus readings of his chart. Your white supremacy is showing.
This reading and rewriting of their life and legacy leads me to believe that the tropical zodiac in the hands of white astrologers lends itself all to well to entrenching the white supremacy and the embrace of white supremacist narratives of Black people.
I categorically reject any astrology that centers the Sun, which is the mind and men, as the most important planet in the birth chart.
I reject any astrology that devalues the Moon, which is the body and women, relegating it to a planet of non-import and secondary to the Sun.
I reject any astrology that centers the individual over community, intellect over intuition and instinct, and that refuses to accept that the individual is shaped by and emerges from the group.
I reject any astrology that embraces narratives of Black radical figures as conciliatory, pandering, and as willing instruments of white supremacist narratives of Black empowerment and self-determination.
I reject any astrology that refuses to give voice to and backs away from articulating the experiences of LGBTQ people.
I talked about this in one of my IG live videos. The tropical zodiac essentially centers the relationship between the Sun and the Earth as primary. The Sidereal zodiac treats that relationship as secondary.
The tropical zodiac says that our experience of the Sun from Earth is the most important. The sidereal zodiac says that Sun to Earth relationship exists within the context of space and time as defined by the stars—not the constellations, to be clear.
This is philosophically how the use of the tropical zodiac is an embrace of the Sun, and thus men and patriarchy, as primary. Everything is interepreted in reference to and defers to the Sun.
Thus, Embracing the sidereal zodiac is a politically and spiritually radical act that places the Sun (the mind and men) on equal footing with the Moon (the body and women.) Embracing the sidereal zodiac says that both the Sun and Moon exist in reference to something else, that greater measure of space and time outside the closed circuit of the Earth’s experience of seasons.
