derbrandtaucher asked: Listen, it’s not a question of you “not communicating your argument” clearly. We’ve heard it all before. You were quite clear. When people tell you something is racist, especially if they’re a minority, you should have the grace to listen. It’s okay to be wrong, but only if you learn from it.
Nonononono, The point i meant to get across was that I don’t like when people are wearing something, even if they don’t know anything about it, and get freaked out on because of it. If someone were to get asked nicely to take something off and letting the person know its offensive, then that’s respectable. And I am trying to listen, but I’m getting a lot of mail from people just blindly calling me stupid and freaking out on me. The mail that I get from people being nice but assertive at the same time, I can definitely learn from that.
and I’m not advocating the use of sacred objects used for fashion, I’m just saying, I can’t stand when people get virtually yelled at because of it.
I can’t stand when I see white people wearing bindi on their foreheads, because I can’t wear one without people calling me “Paki” or telling me to “go back to your country” even though I was born here. I can’t stand when white people get tattoos in Devnagari script, because my parents weren’t allowed to speak Hindi and so I never learned it and don’t understand it. I can’t stand when white people wear jewelry or clothes with Hindu deities on them, because they use my goddesses and gods as kitch or punchlines.
So I’m not crying any tears over when white people perform racist cultural appropriation and then get called on it, or as you persist in characterizing it, getting “yelled at”. Being “yelled at” is hardly the worst thing that could happen. The worst thing is having your culture continually, blithely stolen and warped and undermined and commodified, and then having to deal with white people who have the enormous fucking temerity and entitlement to be hurt when they’re actually told that these things are NOT FOR THEM.
PS: You have clearly never tried to tell somebody that they’re engaging in cultural appropriation. I have. Many times, and many times with utmost politeness and in the most non-confrontational way possible. The amount of times that the person in question has gone, “oops! I didn’t realize! I’m sorry!” and fixed the issue is ZERO. This is the experience of almost everybody who’s done it, I’m confident in saying.
Your insistence on trying to make the racist appropriators seem like the *true* victims here is really, really problematic.
