Why white people need to stop saying 'namaste'

originally posted by: tothetenthpower
a reply to: StallionDuck

Oh at the very core level I agree with you entirely, there is no such thing as race, I'm talking from a purely group think perspective.

White people can't blame black people for all their issues.

The opposite is also true. That was the argument I was making, that each culture is responsible for their own culture.

I was doing the labeling dance because we were talking specifics. That and I was reading Tumblr this morning which we all know is just filled to the brim with white SJW's.

~Tenth

We understand each other clearly now.

I also believe people need to "piss or get off the pot", so to speak. Isn't that something? The media put's something out and you either just have to swallow the bitter pill or believe the rubbish. It would be nice if they were held responsible for their words these days. I would like to see that.

a reply to: Dark Ghost From my perspective there is no greater difference in the human race than male and female....but we seem to get on ok.

There is only one race/one earth/one God.

Strange that a story like this has that impact in the media,

Maybe white people should also stop Rap ,R&B ,Jazz and better concentrate themself or practising war and weapons, not being interested in other cultural differences and biauty that they can learn from ..

Lets just try to have more respect for one another.
Is it not honorable that other cultures or race could be interested in your native and cultured way of living just saying. .

Oh maybe I should stop speak English it's not my main language. .

a reply to: auraofblack

It's all schemes and smoke screens, I value personal enrichment by looking at other cultures and try to learn something new with them, but at the core, never forgetting who I really am, I just find disgusting the double standards that might exist between races, the complete hypocrisy.

a reply to: Dark Ghost

im white from UK, British - my Wife British but Indian Hindu.

she goes to yoga but sometimes finds the class is not for her, i think the last thing she cares about is people using the odd word and quite understanding what it means. You are there to perform certain activity to help better your body and mind. anything else is not really important.

im sure Indian have adapted a lot of western ways, such as English language. I do not scrutinise indian when they say "thank you please" and do not use the right words in the right way, i get what they mean and no need to correct it.

i suggest this lady takes "traditional versions of yoga" and maybe in more rural areas, if you going to a popular tourism place then they will accommodate there teachings towards the tourism.

originally posted by: meiosismb
what's next ? white people should stop being white ?

Of course. That's the plan.

People here seem to agree with the Asian crowd.
Having a tint of color neans your not white.

Which seems a little strange to me.
I am white ... but I do have the same color.

Could we please shut our big mouths over the color of our skin?

Could we just get on with this frikking show ... and just get over the fact that we are all NOT THAT DIFFERENT!?

Get over it!

a reply to: Dark Ghost

This is interesting. I studied Hindu culture and beliefs at an early age (and started practicing yoga out of a library book at age 12- I rechecked it out so often I doubt it was ever put back in its spot on the shelf for longer than a day). So by the time I went to my first yoga class as a teen, I understood exactly what namaste meant and in what context it is meant to be used. And at the end of the class, I refrained from using it. I was uncomfortable doing so in that particular context. I wasn't familiar with the term "cultural appropriation", but that's exactly what I would have used to describe the source of my discomfort if I had been.

The instructor asked me if I had enjoyed the class. I said yes. She then explained in a tone implying that I had transgressed and she was going to put me straight, "You know, namaste means the light in me salutes the light in you."

I replied, "No, it more closely translates to 'The divine in me bows to the divine in you.' Thanks for the class."

Fast forward to several months ago. My boyfriend and I take a beginners yoga class together, because he wants to try it out. Again, I refrain from the closing namaste. BF notices, asks why. I tell him more or less what I wrote above, expanding on how it is intended to be used in Hindu culture, and why I feel it would be disrespectful to use it in this context.

"Yeah, so isn't practicing yoga basically also cultural misappropriation?"

"That's a murky area. I practice it as a physical exercise, and exclude any of the exercises, like chanting mantras, that could be considered part of a religious practice. Because I'm not Hindu."

"Okay, what about Chinese people who say amen in church? Is that cultural appropriation?"

"No, because they've converted to Christianity. Unlike the folks in yon yoga class, they walk the walk."

"Okay, but wouldn't it be like someone in Norway being outraged over the Thor movie? That's a misappropriation of one of his deities, right?"

"How many people would you estimate are practicing Asatru in Norway?"

"Mmmm, maybe like .1% of the population?"

"Right, as opposed to the millions upon millions of contemporary Hindus."

"So? Why does population size matter? Isn't cultural appropriation still cultural appropriation?"

"Maybe, but I think there's a gradient, and I think it's n= the number of people you're going to piss off by cherrypicking and warping parts of their religion so that your clients can get that warm-fuzzy mystic vibe."

"I don't agree."

"That's okay."

So, I admit I felt vindicated after reading this lady's take on the issue.

ETA: Just read the rest of this thread, and I notice people are trying to make this about race. It's not. It's about culture. Like the much reviled SJW crew, it seems like a lot of members are looking for an excuse to be offended.

What I find surprising is just how dim some of these people are.

This person doesn't seem to realize what she is saying is racist by definition, and she doesn't seem to understand her racist logic can be applied to her also. It can go both ways so to speak.

An example of the now acceptable anti white racism which the extreme PC loony left seems to find fashionable. It's fine because it's against white people, quite bizarre. Racism is racism. If we substitute white for any other race they start foaming at the mouth over it, lol.

Cultural appropriation...? Really. Does that apply to everyone. It seems to only apply to white people, again totally racist.

I find it fascinating. The extreme PC loony left, as I call them, are devoid of all reason and logic and have descended into farce and satire.

Long story short:

This is someone whining about "cultural appropriation".

She should be ignored like any other social justice warrior. All they want is a little attention from their faux outrage....so don't give it to them.

originally posted by: Raxoxane
a reply to: auraofblack

I am of the opinion that one can have whatever tattoo resonates with one for any reason.Why should it look silly or inappropriate for ethnicities other than Japanese to have a Japanese calligraphy tatt? How absurd,imo.

Not when they translate to "refrigerator" or "catbox" but hey, let them be happy.

a reply to: Dark Ghost

further on in the article you linked....

The history of colonisation in India means that the practice of yoga in countries with colonial ties, like Australia, can never truly be a friendly exchange. In fact, during their colonial rule, the British banned certain practices of yoga which they perceived as threatening and 'less acceptable' Hindu practices

further...

Given most classes are taught by white women, and most ads you see for yoga classes or yoga wear feature white women, white women have become the embodiment of yoga in Australia. As a Hindu woman, this places me as the "other" in a culture that is mine

Her problem is she wants to demean Australians by reason of some connection of Australia with Britain. She conveniently overlooks that Australia was a colony of the British as well. Having laid the spurious guilt connection - she than has the audacity to be the arbiter of what is acceptable interpretation of Yoga in Australia

The yoga class felt strange, as if I had somehow gone there in a misguided attempt to connect with what I thought was a part of my identity. Instead, as the class went on, I felt like an imposter.

I think she is a fine contender for deportation - if you come to a country like Australia and decide to try this shi*t maybe you are better off back in India (she calls Melbourne her home?)

Though, to this Hindu girl who migrated to Australia in the 1990s, the appropriation of yoga by western audiences goes further.

We migrated from Greece to Aust when I was 4. The last time I was in Greece I had a yiros with fries inside mixed with salad & the meat. Obviously this somehow was an "imported" idea from British yiros making or from demand by the locals or tourists.

Welcome to the real world. People and cultures adapt - I wonder in her quest for "identity reclaiming" if she walks around in a Sari; does she subscribe to the Caste system in Australia? I note she is a Bollywood loving Lawyer -

a reply to: Dark Ghost

Can't help wondering if the young lady in question would prefer it were white people not to do yoga at all?

Its also strange that this young lady would want to live in Australia among white people in the first place. I dare say there is a lot all of us would prefer others not to say, but its arrogance expecting them not to say what they think and feel - even if its adopting from another culture something they think worthy.

Most Indians I have worked with were only too happy to share their cultural ideas and especially celebrations with us, so I can't help wondering if her problem stems from the modern apologist attitude that has been deliberately inbred into our universities and schools by the stupid over compensators we all have to put up with today. Its clearly the newest way for lawyers to earn a living as their other once wealthy clients dry up and disappear and they find other avenues to exploit.

a reply to: TheConstruKctionofLight

Continued

www.aii.unimelb.edu.au...

Kamna Muddagouni is a lawyer working in Melbourne. Born in Mumbai and raised in Melbourne, Kamna has an avid interest in Indian cinema, pop culture and soft power. She hopes her training in Bollywood dance will one day come to great use when she is 'discovered' as an extra in the next big hit in the subcontinent. She will be the Australia India Institute's blogger for the IFFM, so keep an eye out!

I note that
en.wikipedia.org...

Hollywood, where musicals were popular from the 1920s to the 1950s, though Indian filmmakers departed from their Hollywood counterparts in several ways. "For example, the Hollywood musicals had as their plot the world of entertainment itself. Indian filmmakers, while enhancing the elements of fantasy so pervasive in Indian popular films, used song and music as a natural mode of articulation in a given situation in their films. There is a strong Indian tradition of narrating mythology, history, fairy stories and so on through song and dance." In addition, "whereas Hollywood filmmakers strove to conceal the constructed nature of their work so that the realistic narrative was wholly dominant, Indian filmmakers made no attempt to conceal the fact that what was shown on the screen was a creation, an illusion, a fiction. However, they demonstrated how this creation intersected with people's day to day lives in complex and interesting ways."[46] Western musical television, particularly MTV, which has had an increasing influence since the 1990s, as can be seen in the pace, camera angles, dance sequences and music of 2000s Indian films. An early example of this approach was in Mani Ratnam's Bombay (1995).[46]

So guess what...Bollywood borrowed from other cultures.
She has no problem dancing along with the cultural mishmash known as Bollywood!

Surely this "lawyer" should know better, (she has quite a web presence) she would eventually be found out to be a hypocrite

a reply to: Spookytraction

I come from a place that is lampooned in various forms of cultural appropriation.

The whole "honky tonk" phase of hollywood, right after Urban Cowboy. The whole rodeo phase(s) that roll through from time to time. Or just the regular old western phases.

The Texas Cowboy...

would you think it appropriate for me to see someone in NYC wearing a pair of those $5k Tony Post boots with a riding heel? Should I feel like my culture is being appropriated because they have never even ridden a horse, and aren't riding one right then (and thus should likely be using the roper heel?)

I mean, we can nitpick and be petty about our culture. Hearing someone joke about how tacos give them the runs....that COULD be fairly insulting to my culture, if I were to put my mind to it, make a blog, and write a post about it.

To me, even worse than cultural appropriation is disrespecting someone in their own house. For an indian woman to complain about how indian is done in America, when its obvious that Americans are more than open to learning about her culture....she has an opportunity to teach here. Instead, she climbed on her soapbox and proclaimed her culture to be hers, privately, obviously unwilling to share her culture with others.

That's not defensible.

a reply to: Dark Ghost

The only time I would ever use the word 'namaste' would be if it were a pizza topping. But that's my business. Not hers.

People are idiots.

a reply to: Dark Ghost
Interesting thread. But once again, it is a matter of people arguing the absolutes, when there is plenty of grey area where everybody can get along.
Yes, Social Justice Warriors are a pain. But so are Highly Indignant White Males. A little compromise, a little empathy, go a long ways. However, 'being cool with it' is not apparently an adequate substitute for people looking to make their heads explode.

a reply to: Dark Ghost

This article might seem insignificant in itself, but the deeper issue it touches upon is of extreme importance: denying rights to white people on their skin tone alone is socially permissible.

What is even more ironic is that she practises anti-discrimination Law

a reply to: bigfatfurrytexan

would you think it appropriate for me to see someone in NYC wearing a pair of those $5k Tony Post boots with a riding heel? Should I feel like my culture is being appropriated because they have never even ridden a horse, and aren't riding one right then (and thus should likely be using the roper heel?)

No, but I'd bet dollars to donuts you'd think the guy looked ridiculous, and you'd probably be right. Anyway, I think there's a distinction between religion and fashion. Right?

originally posted by: bigfatfurrytexan
a reply to: Spookytraction

I come from a place that is lampooned in various forms of cultural appropriation.

...and not being a jerk, you respond by laughing at them. 'All hat - no horse'. Best response out there!