No, she's not. She's expressing specific ideas regarding the concept of cultural appropriation. The idea that a girl who moved to Australia over 25 years ago expected to find authentic Hindu yoga (whatever that means) in Melbourne beggars belief.
And she's not allowed to give any context to her feelings? In terms of which you and Metaphor approve?
What an odd position for those who insist that people should be allowed to do as they wish, express themselves as they wish.
It isn't "context". It is judgement.
This is "context":
Yoga in Hindu traditions is more than physical exercise. It is a multifaceted philosophy, medicine system and way of life. The asanas, or 'poses', that people perform when they go to their local class are one part of several other practices – including mediation, abstention and liberation – that are considered as a philosophical school in Hinduism.
That isn't to say somehow that yoga belongs only to Hindus or to all Hindus. There are many caste and class-based critiques of yoga in India and Indian diasporas which say that yoga has often been used as a tool by communities with existing power to project a certain image of what it means to be Indian or Hindu at the expense of minority and oppressed voices.
This is judgemental:
Whether marketed as an exercise class or a way to connect with your spiritual self, the commodification of yoga in a way that is entirely dismissive or ignorant of its roots or connections to an existing religion is appropriation at its worst.
This is context:
In fact, during their colonial rule, the British banned certain practices of yoga which they perceived as threatening and 'less acceptable' Hindu practices. As a policy of conciliation towards some aspects of Indian culture was pursued by the British in the later years of their rule, the Brits promoted a re-appropriated more physical 'modern' yoga which is more akin to the postural yoga taught in many classes in Australia today.
This is judgemental:
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.
Not context... judgement:
It's about questioning whether your practice of yoga is claiming space away from people of colour to whom yoga is more than a part of their daily routine – it's a part of their cultural and religious identity.
It's about considering whether you can practise yoga without spiritually harvesting a culture and religion that is not yours when you have no deeper understanding, or desire to understand, the historical and social roots of the culture yoga comes from.
And it's about considering whether your casually saying a few namastes at the end of your yoga class feeds into the commodification of Hindu spirituality that then makes it OK for people to Instagram memes such as 'Namaste away from me', to publish a yoga book as a white woman called 'Namaslay', and to make people of South Asian and Hindu identity feel exoticised and misunderstood.
She is certainly entitled to her opinion, and even entitled to write an article for publication expressing that opinion.
But that doesn't make her opinion valid, factually correct or anything more than an opinion that does actually sound rather self-entitled... exactly what she is accusing "white women" of.
I think she makes a few decent points.
The yoga class felt strange... I felt like an imposter.
Those are her feelings, and I can understand how she might feel that way. Experiencing something that should be entirely familiar in an unfamiliar context is disconcerting. I suspect we've all had that happen to us at some point in our lives.
Namaste is my way of greeting Hindi speaking elders in my hometown Melbourne or a way of saying hello to most people back in India. But hearing namaste chanted by the white yoga instructor to a predominantly white class was unsettling. Really? If the yoga class itself wasn't white-centric enough, she really had to place the appropriative cherry on top.
I can even agree with her a little bit on this one. Complaining about a "white-centric" class in Australia is probably stupid, but I can understand the annoyance at the use of "namaste". The instructors are using a single word from another language to... do what? If the instructor speaks Hindi, even badly, then fine. If the person is greeting someone who speaks Hindi and is trying to be respectful, then fine. But the oh-so-reverently saying of "namaste" during a yoga class has always been eye-roll worthy to me, and I can understand why it pisses her off.
Then again, I say "gesundheit", so what do I know.
In many western countries, Hinduism is treated as a mystic and ancient tradition and India as magical - ignoring the fact that Hinduism is a living, breathing contemporary religion practised by millions of people in their everyday lives around the world, including a huge Indian diaspora in Australia.
Valid point, and goes back to the use of the word "namaste" like it is a magical word instead of simply saying "good bye". We tend to do the same thing with Native American culture.
But part of that "treating [her culture] as a mystic and ancient tradition and... magical" is pretending that it is off limits to acquisition and adaptation - which is what she is doing.
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.
Again, I can understand how this can feel disconcerting. Believe me, I experience the feeling every day in the US city I was born in. That's life.
It also furthers the economic exploitation of the colonised by the colonisers - landing the profits from a practice that has been appropriated from the colonised in the pockets of the colonisers.
This is the most valid point in her entire article, but I'm not sure it really applies to her specific topic. This is one of the two ways I do see "cultural appropriation" as being harmful, but I am wondering if there is some law or other barrier to Hindu women teaching yoga classes?
The example of a Chinese restaurant has been brought up previously - the fact that the food is typically americanized and has little resemblance to "authentic" Chinese food - is this "cultural appropriation". The other part that factors in, imho, is that every Chinese restaurant I have ever been into has been owned by a Chinese family. Maybe that's a fluke. I haven't done a study. But if my personal experience is an accurate indication, then it is Chinese people - not white people - who are profiting.
I do think there are examples of this aspect - "the economic exploitation of the colonised by the colonisers - landing the profits from a practice that has been appropriated from the colonised in the pockets of the colonisers" - and I do think that could be at least one indicator of genuine "bad" "cultural appropriation" - but I don't think yoga classes in Australia qualify.
OK teal deer, so I end it here
