Yoga Classes Cancelled; Cultural Appropriation Strikes Again

[december-fire]

I'd never heard of cultural appropriation until Kenny's thread about food.

Jen Scharf, who taught the free yoga class at the University of Ottawa for the last seven years, was told the class was cancelled.

"I guess it was this cultural appropriation issue because yoga originally comes from India," she said on Sunday. "I told them, 'Why don't we just change the name of the course?' It's simple enough, just call it mindful stretching.… We're not going through the finer points of scripture. We're talking about basic physical awareness and how to stretch so that you feel good.

"That went back and forth… The higher-ups at the student federation got involved, finally we got an email routed through the student federation basically saying they couldn't get a French name and nobody wants to do it, so we're going to cancel it for now."

The requirement to have a French translation of the class name is due to the bilingual nature of the University of Ottawa.

http://www.msn.com/en-ca/news/canada/yoga-classes-cancelled-at-university-of-ottawa-over-cultural-issues/ar-BBnkb9V?li=AAacUQk&ocid=HPCDHP

If you want to feel oppressed, victimized, offended, discriminated against, go for it.

Yes, I know I just offended some people by stating my opinion.

 

[telephone89]

Re: Yoga Classes Cancelled; Cultural Appropriation Strikes A

I think being aware of cultural appropriation is important - ie wearing a native headdress, or a bindi. But it's really getting out of hand. Pretty much everything can be considered cultural appropriation if you look hard enough =\

 

[kenny]

Re: Yoga Classes Cancelled; Cultural Appropriation Strikes A

Well, I guess this is the end of religions from other countries.

 

[chemgirl]

Re: Yoga Classes Cancelled; Cultural Appropriation Strikes A

Yeah...I think this is taking the whole PC thing a little far.

My yoga class doesn't really have anything to do with religion, it's just a room of sweaty people stretching.

So where does it end? Would it be offensive to host a dinner party and serve food from a different culture?

 

[kenny]

Re: Yoga Classes Cancelled; Cultural Appropriation Strikes A

My understanding is, Yoga has two parts ... physical and mental.
You can do the physical and ignore all the mental aspects.

I suspect you can't successfully do the mental parts without also doing the physical parts.

But there I go, using my evil western mind again.

 

[smitcompton]

Re: Yoga Classes Cancelled; Cultural Appropriation Strikes A

Hi,

I have only done the mental exercises as relaxation techniques. These are most helpful. They have nothing to do with religion, except that these techniques were developed in India. Buddist monks use them as well and can reduce their blood pressure and heart rate and they can meditate for hours. Its hard to do. I can last 15 minutes.

Annette

 

[packrat]

Re: Yoga Classes Cancelled; Cultural Appropriation Strikes A

hahahaha ahhhh but we made it this way. We all did. By allowing one to get twisted in sensitivities, why not another and another and why not this one over here, and why can't this one now be offended, if we're offended by X, that's not fair. And we alllll know it's all about fairness anymore. If one person is upset, game over, full stop. I'm of the suck it up buttercup camp, not the everyone's a winner camp. Buttercup Camp wasn't quite as vociferous as Winner Camp.

 

[kenny]

Re: Yoga Classes Cancelled; Cultural Appropriation Strikes A

I'm offended by anyone who isn't a fat, old, white, English-speaking, bull in a china shop, atheist, gay male, intelligent, flour-milling, musically talented, grumpy, devastatingly-handsome, chopstick-using, arrogant, hilarious, narcissistic, recycling, Fancy Colored Diamond macrophotographing, shrimp-raising, worm-culturing, and hypermiling hybrid-driving A-hole.

How can y'all live with yourselves?

 

[monarch64]

Re: Yoga Classes Cancelled; Cultural Appropriation Strikes A

I'm offended by anyone who isn't a fat, old, white, English-speaking, bull in a china shop, atheist, gay male, intelligent, flour-milling, musically talented, grumpy, devastatingly-handsome, chopstick-using, arrogant, hilarious, narcissistic, recycling, Fancy Colored Diamond macrophotographing, shrimp-raising, worm-culturing, and hypermiling hybrid-driving A-hole.

How can y'all live with yourselves?

Kenny, I am offended when people who aren't from the South say "y'all." And I am even more offended when they put the apostrophe in the wrong place, but that's a topic for a whole other thread probably.

Quelle horreur. (I'm not French, so now I'm being offensive, aren't I?!)

 

[kenny]

Re: Yoga Classes Cancelled; Cultural Appropriation Strikes A



Well, I'm offended that you're offended and if that's offensive then I'm offended.

We should start a new forum called, HFF, Hissy Fit Forum.
We'd get rich!

We could have annual meetings in Vegas where members meet fellow hissyites to bitch and moan about the mundane.

 

[partgypsy]

Re: Yoga Classes Cancelled; Cultural Appropriation Strikes A

I thought this was an interesting article. Basically that Indians are enthusiastic about the spreading of yoga to non-Indian cultures, and that there hasn't been a problem with non-Indian devotees going on to teach to others, and yoga its practices and methods are not fixed in an ancient form but have evolved over time.

http://www.slate.com/articles/double_x/doublex/2015/11/university_canceled_yoga_class_no_it_s_not_cultural_appropriation_to_practice.html

 

[kenny]

Re: Yoga Classes Cancelled; Cultural Appropriation Strikes A

Here's a story, with a video, about a restaurant bringing America's version of Chinese food to ... China!

Gosh Durn! ... Can we Americans be offended too?
I mean, isn't it appropriate that I think it's inappropriate to appropriate the appropriated?

http://www.bbc.com/news/business-34896355

 

[packrat]

Re: Yoga Classes Cancelled; Cultural Appropriation Strikes A

I thought this was an interesting article. Basically that Indians are enthusiastic about the spreading of yoga to non-Indian cultures, and that there hasn't been a problem with non-Indian devotees going on to teach to others, and yoga its practices and methods are not fixed in an ancient form but have evolved over time.

http://www.slate.com/articles/double_x/doublex/2015/11/university_canceled_yoga_class_no_it_s_not_cultural_appropriation_to_practice.html

They should be enthusiastic. They've got something incredible and that is inclusive-anyone can do it, most of the people I'm aware of who practice are inclusive and welcoming, it has amazing benefits to your mind and body--and they know it. To gripe that it is wrong for others to practice it would be selfish and go against part of what yoga is about.

I'm not Korean, and my Taekwondo instructor isn't Korean either. She didn't learn from a Korean. Tho we are a part of a TKD studio that was started by a Korean who is a 9th Dan (Degree) and his studio is open to *all*.

I feel it says more about those who are offended, than those who are considered the offenders.

 

[VRBeauty]

Re: Yoga Classes Cancelled; Cultural Appropriation Strikes A

Apparently one person's cultural appreciation is another person's cultural appropriation...

 

[Matata]

Re: Yoga Classes Cancelled; Cultural Appropriation Strikes A

I'm of the suck it up buttercup camp, not the everyone's a winner camp.

We should take this opportunity to form a new social movement -- The Suck It Up Buttercup Brigade compete with tee-shirts of the nonwomanbeating kind. We can picket colleges/universities and shout culturally appropriated slogans while wearing culturally appropriated clothing and eating culturally appropriated food. Ooohhhh and carry picket signs written in other languages. Ohhhh and we can demand that no language other than English be taught in schools or spoken in this country since we shouldn't appropriate a language. Surely we'll offend a native speaker if we develop a healthy respect for a language and its attendant culture.

I think it would be great fun to turn the tables on this utterly ridiculous notion of appropriation. I mean, come on world, the definition of cultural approp is: "Cultural appropriation is a sociological concept which views the adoption or use of elements of one culture by members of a different culture as a largely negative phenomenon."

How on earth can you separate the "melting pot" of America into distinct cultures and scrub the alleged appropriation everywhere it shouldn't be? My head is spinning. I think I'm starting to lose my grip on reality.

What happened to imitation is the sincerest form of flattery....

 

[kenny]

Re: Yoga Classes Cancelled; Cultural Appropriation Strikes A

We must give America back to the native Americans.
Then they must give it back to all the non-human inhabitants that preceded them.
Those animals must give it back to those creatures who were earlier on the evolutionary chain ... and so on.

Eventually the pond scum must give the earth back to the rocks that preceded them.

It's got to be something-ist to think that life is superior to rocks and dirt.

 

[packrat]

Re: Yoga Classes Cancelled; Cultural Appropriation Strikes A

Yes! Suck It Up Buttercup Brigade all the way!

Not everyone is a winner!

 

[Matata]

Re: Yoga Classes Cancelled; Cultural Appropriation Strikes A

Yes! Suck It Up Buttercup Brigade all the way!

Not everyone is a winner!

OMG, I am so exasperated by this whole thing that I want to run outside, point my finger at everyone I see and shout "You're a loser, a culturally appropriated LOSER nyah nyah nyah." I hope someone comes to visit me in that special place they put people like me, yanno, the one with bars on the windows where you are fitted in jackets that buckle in the back.

 

[Jambalaya]

Re: Yoga Classes Cancelled; Cultural Appropriation Strikes A

Um, I just had a thought. A disturbing, lifechanging thought that may well render me mute.

Isn't Americans speaking English cultural appropriation of the language of Great Britain? It's true that they culturally-appropriated us - and how! - but since we kicked them out many moons ago, isn't it culturally appropriative of us to keep their language? Shouldn't we have our OWN language by now? One made up by us.

I'll start. Whaagangnbooga. Ehihm eear. Fookemall.

And also our own justice system, since we culturally-appropriated that too. My vote for our first American law is that it's OK to stick Donald Trump on his own island, along with anyone whose surname is Kardashian.

And....no one should eat turkey on Thursday. Because the roots of Thanksgiving are in the harvest festivals of the aforementioned Great Britain, which they in turn culturally-appropriated from the pagans. Poor pagans!

And by the way, no one should wear a wedding ring either. Another symbol of the pagans. Unless you are an actual pagan.

 

[Matata]

Re: Yoga Classes Cancelled; Cultural Appropriation Strikes A

I'll start. Whaagangnbooga. Ehihm eear. Fookemall.

Bizbub!!!! Furanga mistoya humma humma [click] zyspic.

 

[Matata]

Re: Yoga Classes Cancelled; Cultural Appropriation Strikes A

And I'm going to stop now, cause, just cause.

 

[Jambalaya]

Re: Yoga Classes Cancelled; Cultural Appropriation Strikes A

I'll start. Whaagangnbooga. Ehihm eear. Fookemall.

Bizbub!!!! Furanga mistoya humma humma [click] zyspic.

I know, Matata, I know. I hear ya.

 

[packrat]

Re: Yoga Classes Cancelled; Cultural Appropriation Strikes A

I was thinking a little bit ago when I was out driving thru town, looking at the (very few) restaurants we have here in town...I've seen and heard many many many people over the years speak (and type) w/derision and look down on their noses at people who "don't know what "real" Mexican or "real" Chinese or "real" whatever kind of food is. People *from* those places. And then people bitch if you DO eat "real" food b/c you are..racist if you do?? what? Cuz really? You can take your happy ass out of this mom and pop diner where you're eating a burger and fries with apple pie for dessert and rolling your eyes at how "lame" we are for not knowing the difference, and for thinking "Americanized" food is "real" food.

We really like to set ourselves up for failure, we like to change the rules mid game on everyone, and do everything we possibly can to make others feel they are less.