Wholesale hats

Gdansk!

Sorry, got threads mixed up. This is what happens, Larry, when you several SM threads simultaneously with tabbed browsing.

But I think this discussion would do very well without reference to Nina’s race or even her work, which, while great, is irrelevant to this post.

Nina, you too, didn’t need to state that you are Jewish. Your view about the Hitler Cross incident would be equally welcome/important, no matter what your religion.

In fact, this is one of the best things about the ‘net. Arguments can be weighed for the their inherent worth, not for who’s making them.

i took pains to make this less about Nina and more about the contention that somehow we’re living in world in which race and class are not more combined than Nina was making it out to be. The part “upper middle class desis” play in this scenario? Its like blasting the Korean grocery store owner for being in LA. Its such a salon discussion statement to excoriate upper middle class desis and all the class priviledge they have as if we’re actually relevent to the most prominent discussions going on in this debate. its like being yelling at Apu for the fact the only Latino in Springfield is a costumed bumble bee. Yeah, cos its Apu’s fault

this is what i wrote, which is similiar to what you wrote

i think you mentioned an important word, respect. i think indians/desis need to pick and choose their fights based on this word. yes, there is some exotification and orientalism by both desis and non-desis. this will always happen when translating someone else’s culture or even your own sometimes. but it is important to distinguish between, as someone else pointed out, naive but respectful intentions that result in basically harmless, “good” (for lack of a better word) “exotification” and knowingly disrespectful, harmful exotification with mean intentions and that seeks to make fun of something. for example, indians exotify and occidentalize western culture in their own way, but usually (but not always) in a naive way not driven by disrespect or bad intentions.

i went to a yoga retreat once that was full of basically white people. they sang bhajans and we few indians felt a bit out of place (and that bugged me, to be honest, because i felt “this is my culture.”) but their intent was good and it would have been ungracious to point out that their bhajans were not as up to par. however, i have heard stories of other places where white yoga practioners basically treat indians like outsiders. this is the sort of appropriation that is more worrisome. a buddhist friend from Korea experienced the same at a buddhist prayer group in the united states. she was the only non-white buddhist and they made her feel very unwelcome. she felt they had appropriated her tradition and were altering it from its roots and making it very exclusivist.