This is plain stupid…
I think the issue extends beyond just being “liberal”. I think these kids are doing what they are doing because it is trendy to do so right now. Perhaps they enjoy the spotlight, or the power to influence change. Who knows?
In other words, I guess I question the authenticity of these protests more than anything.
HRSMom; this is really what the problem is with college students acting this way. society at large will not listen to you if you ban a yoga class. all of this useful energy is being wasted on petty tiny events.
Let’s remember that this case doesn’t involve a protest, and again, these are Canadians.
It seems most likely that somebody thought that non-Hindus leading a yoga class was like the Christians holding a seder that Hanna mentioned. Are those analogous? Probably not, but there may be a controversy about this in the “yoga world,” just as there is a controversy on the flipside about whether yoga is a religious practice that doesn’t belong in public schools.
Apparently yoga as practiced by many is A Thing that some object to: http://www.hafsite.org/media/pr/takeyogaback
I’m taking back blonde hair. (maybe grey. Im a little late for that party!)
Depending on the context, I guess yoga can be too Hindu or not Hindu enough.
Exactly, @Hunt . For the California Christian parents, too Hindu…for the Canada students, not Hindu enough, I suppose.
Every week I sit in the lowest level of an English learning classroom filled with brand new adult refugees. My students are from places like Burkina Faso, Somolia, Burma, Bhutan, Nepal, Viet Nam,China, etc. They barely speak any English, but it is so fun and humbling to watch the friendships grow as they come up with their own ways of communicating with classmates. The Canadian students would be in shock, but daily they are trying to teach us and each other a dance, an exercise, their way of weaving, their way of wearing headwear or face markings and amazing new foods and festival traditions. They want to share their culture and customs and are honored when their new friends are interested.
I see a diverse group that enjoys having others take interest in their ways and is thrilled when others incorporate a little piece of that into their own lives -even though at times the incorporation is totally messed up.
The Canadian students and the woman who wrote the yoga article about the black woman feeling uncomfortable seem to be living in a world where their first thought is “how are were different?” and their second thought is “I am certain that because we are different someone must be offended.” This cannot be healthy.
Wow, it seems to me these all miss the mark. Which is that, what does it matter what these other people do or wear? Does it remotely affect your ability, if you are a Hindi in the case of yoga or a Christian or Jew in the case of whatever jewelry is being talked about, to continue to do things as they were originally intended, as you think they are correctly done? As someone else said, cultural appropriation and inevitable distortions happen all the time, in all cultures. How does that make things harder for the original practitioners or the true believers? Who cares?
Or more correctly, why should you care? If you are offended, that is your issue. I have heard many Jewish people sing Christmas songs, and more to the point here, I have heard Jewish comedians change the words and satirize Christmas songs. I have heard Jewish comedians do riffs on the sacraments. I was not offended in the least, but if others are, too bad. It doesn’t affect at all their ability to practice their religion as they see fit. For those of you that are offended by someone wearing religious jewelry in a non-religious way, does it make you feel unsafe? Does someone trying a Seder and botching it really affect you in any meaningful way (and I think “reality” TV is not a great example, btw)?
I cannot tell you not to feel offended, obviously. But being offended is not the worst thing in the world that can happen, and doesn’t even come close to meriting trampling on the civil rights of others, or for that matter even the enjoyment of others in most cases, because usually the offender is oblivious. If there is evil intent, that is another matter. But perceiving negative intent in every action that involves another culture is exactly what is wrong with this movement. Trying to inform people to know better, or to gain some insight and sensitivity? Great, more knowledge is always a good thing. But be nice about it, not strident and all “OMG, I cannot function while this is going on in the world”. That last was directed at most of the students in these Princeton type movements, not at the CC’ers who made the above statements. So while this yoga story seems to be an over-the-top example, extreme as some said, it does help bring to light some of the problems with how some of the more “real” issues are being handled, and how far over the line some of the demands being made are. I sympathize that it is hard to get people to listen sometimes, but going too far, both in what really is an issue and in the demands for how to make things better, just makes the people that can really change it tune out.
To me the bottom line is that it seems impossible to have the kind of country we do, with hundreds of cultures and ethnicities and languages and religions, etc. if we are going to be this thin-skinned. Until America, for the most part countries tended to be more homogeneous, and in the cases of some large countries that had differing peoples due to conquest, etc. they were regionalized in such a way that on a day-to-day basis this was less of an issue. To the extent they hated each other, I suspect there wasn’t much appropriation going on. I know it is far more complicated historically than that, but the point holds that either we are going to have to Balkanize (ain’t gonna happen) or learn not to take every single thing as a slight or worse. Yes, we can learn and be more aware of some things that are unnecessarily offensive, such as some phrases. But as humans there will always be issues and slips and btw, we cannot change history. We can explain it more fully and do full semester courses that examine in total and with balance the life of Woodrow Wilson, for example. We can certainly point out behaviors that can reasonably be taken as thoughtless. That is an excellent path to take. But we shouldn’t be advocating for more isolation and segregation, less tolerance of harmless “appropriations”, and the increasing tension and hatred that results.
I have to say I found that particularly amusing because we are not Jewish but many people think my daughter looks Jewish. I guess she has an advantage walking into a Jewish deli. We love lox and bagels, btw. Thank God that doesn’t offend you.
Of course it is not my place to tell you with what you should and should not be comfortable, but I would point out the following. If you are just reciting by rote something you don’t understand in the least, even if it were in English, then it seems to me you should feel no level of comfort or discomfort with what the words mean. You are only saying them to yourself, and perhaps they are melodic in some way that is soothing. I have attended funerals for Jewish friends and they pass out transliterations of the Hebrew prayers, so I take that as a signal that they would like it if I followed along and said them as well. Perhaps I am wrong and that is just for Jewish people that don’t read Hebrew. I certainly mean no disrespect, even though I have no idea what I am saying. The point to me is that intent is everything, and you can’t really have any if you don’t know what the words mean, other than some symbolic respect for the proceedings in my example. It isn’t like this is Hogwarts and something is going to magically happen whether you know what the words are or not.
“Anyway, the point to me is that intent is everything, and you can’t have any if you don’t know what the words mean. It isn’t like this is Hogwarts and something is going to magically happen whether you know what the words are or not.”
This is a tangent, of course, but for some reason this discussion reminds me of the Hitler sweater experiment (would you wear a sweater that had been Hitler’s; if you found out a sweater you were wearing had been owned by Hitler, would you rip it off your body).
http://bigthink.com/Mind-Matters/a-real-life-version-of-the-hitlers-sweater-experiment
Muggles appropriating Wizard culture here…
As a Catholic should I be offended if I see someone eating bread and wine in a restaurant?
@fallenchemist I think your point about “intent” is a good one. But for me there actually is some sort of “power” to the chants that does not necessarily come from me - perhaps it is the unison of sound. Chanting, especially at the end of a class when your body is spent and your mind is at rest, does bring you closer to the spiritual realm. At least for me.
My objection to not knowing the meaning of the words is that chanting is also common in satanism and in similar forms of the occult. If I am being brought closer to a spiritual realm I want to know which one. I am pretty much an agnostic, but happily participate in religious prayer/services when invited by my family/friends whom embrace a wide variety of beliefs. But I am familiar with those beliefs and none of them are particularly objectionable to me.
If the chant is something supporting the tenets of Hinduism, Buddhism or something similar, I am good with it. I just want to know ahead of time where the chant hails from and a loose translation of what I am saying. Many of my yoga teachers I know well, like and trust. Others not so much.
I know you man that satirically, but that would only apply if they performed a blessing ceremony that transformed the items first. There is bread, there is wine, and then there is “bread and wine”. But you are right that in a way that gets to intent, similar to wearing a piece of clothing that in another culture might be religious in nature.
I never object to being more informed! And I agree that if the melodiousness or other properties of the sound are the important part for those practicing with non-religious intent, it should be easy to find nonsense syllable substitutions that serve the same purpose, such as in scat singing or doo-wop. Surely “Ommm” is just a sound?
I am good with “Om” but I have been in more than a few classes where it goes way beyond that - it’s a “repeat after me” sort of thing.
I think I must apologize to all those of Jewish heritage…I, a white semi-Christian female have been partaking in the bagels and lox tradition for years. Mea Culpa! I promise to do better. Is there an ‘I appropriated the bagels and lox’ reparations fund to which I should contribute?