"Yoga and the Maintainence of White Womanhood"

[DosaDaRaja]

Was reading some stuff and came across this blog article by an Indian lady, who was laid off of a yoga studio by the owner for being too 'confrontative' when she talked to a (white) coworker about using shitty Namaste puns and basically reducing that word to a joke.

The article later delves into how upper- class white women tend to adopt some ''ethnic" activities/culture in an attempt to pass off as more 'welcoming', 'liberal' and 'hip', while behind the backs of said 'ethnics' will behave condescendingly and often dismissive of their concerns, and make hilariously off the charts stupid statements like yoga making them 'feel closer to destitute and starving street children in India'.

Here's a link to the article:
http://rumyaputcha.com/115-2/

Some quotes from the article:

In light of this new heightened awareness, I, perhaps naively, opened up to a fellow member at my yoga studio, a White woman and a self-described “liberal,” after she had made a pun, “Namastay Together,” out of the word “Namaste.” In our conversation, I confided in her how unsettled it left me feeling to constantly see and hear namaste reduced to a clever way to signal so-called inclusive politics, especially at a time when people who looked like me felt less and less comfortable speaking in our mother tongues in public.

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In the time since that egregious episode, I’ve tried to take mental stock of my experiences with self-described liberal White women more generally. I recalled a yoga studio I belonged to in the Midwest, owned and operated by a liberal White woman, which was decorated with pictures of malnourished Indian women begging in Mumbai. I can remember, with disgust, another, a fitness instructor in Texas who bragged to me, that though she had never been to India she often fantasized that she was “communing with Indian street children” while she practised yoga and meditation. I still wince at the memory of a former college roommate, who in a jilted drunken rage, screamed at our Pakistani cab driver when he refused her advances, “my husband could buy you and your whole country!” And most recently, I overheard a Canadian liberal, a supposed ally and fellow academic, mocking the idea racists exist or are even a problem in a conversation she never intended for me to hear. When she realized I had caught her voicing these disturbing sentiments, she rationalized her transgression; defending her betrayal as a “private conversation.”

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Taken as a whole, I’ve begun to wonder if this is why White women, especially those who consider themselves liberals, love yoga and the word “namaste” so much—it performs a sense of virtue-signaling which recenters Whiteness, all while providing a deflecting shield against scrutiny under the logic of “private spirituality.” It’s all the bragging rights of social justice without any of the humility or self-awareness.

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While the corporate representative, a kind young woman named Christine, apologized profusely to me for what had happened at my local studio and acknowledged that she was personally uncomfortable with the way the company was “selling India,” she admitted that White women (like her) were ideal consumers of yoga because such women desperately needed to believe that they are the “good kind” of White people; the colorblind, well-travelled kind.

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But, it’s not just that yoga is an incredibly homogenous and aspirational White female culture, it’s also an astoundingly upper-class culture. As of 2017, over 40% of yoga practitioners earned over $75,000 a year, and 25% over $100,000 annually. In other words, yoga studios are the new country clubs. Only, instead of “Whites only” signs at the door, you might see something like this:

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In other words, the current (mis)use of namaste is not only a shining example of how White women (and those who seek to be identified with this group) tend to adopt a racialized otherness to perform a hip, cosmopolitan identity, especially through fashion that is sold as informal or lounge-wear (i.e., clothes you wear in private), but is also a uniquely North American brand of consumer-driven racism.

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TLDR: "It’s all the bragging rights of social justice without any of the humility or self-awareness."

PS: While personally I'm not that averse to the word 'Namaste' (which translates to hello) in a Yogi context, do not use that at the end of a yoga session. Instead, if you wanna say something, use 'Dhanyavaad', which translates to 'Thank you'.

 

[shadowsdarknes]

I really wasnt aware so many American Yoga goers were also doing it to appear cultured or well travelled.

I thought it was largely about the health benefits.

Can someone attend yoga, acknowledge that they know little about the culture and its origins, participate in the movements, and enjoy it freely?
I certainly understand the frustrations of affluent white people acting condescending about the activity. But the mere participation can't be racist.

 

[gigantor21]

Pretending to respect different cultures, and appropriating bits and pieces of their language and ideas without understanding or respecting them to look "woke" or whatever, drives me up the fucking wall. It is also way too common.

As the son of two African immigrants, it is infuriating how people who swear they are allies and believe in multiculturalism are so quick to compartmentalize bad behavior or deflect criticism for it. Whether it was the black kids on the basketball court yelling about how my cousin must be fighting lions and tigers in the jungle; the frat boys who tried to recruit me at college who ended up getting suspended for wearing blackface at a Halloween party; the dumbass white girl who would puff her stomach out and joke about being a "starving African baby"; people in our own damn neighborhood yelling at my Mom to go home when they heard her speaking her own language; and so on. All of this happening in very liberal areas of New York, no less.

It's a truly surreal thing, hearing all types of ignorance and fuckery about the Continent from whites who listen to rap music and use black slang AND black people who would offer vague praise of "the motherland" they've never been to and know nothing about. And it's pretty much part and parcel for any race or culture that isn't considered "standard".

 

[Khanimus]

Reminds me of this...

 

[alzabo]

The article later delves into how upper- class white women tend to adopt some ''ethnic" activities/culture in an attempt to pass off as more 'welcoming', 'liberal' and 'hip', while behind the backs of said 'ethnics' will behave condescendingly and often dismissive of their concerns, and make hilariously off the charts stupid statements like yoga making them 'feel closer to destitute and starving street children in India'.

Click to shrink...

This actually gets past people's mental filters before it comes out of their mouths? lawd

 

[Vincent Grayson]

I really wasnt aware so many American Yoga goers were also doing it to appear cultured or well travelled.

I thought it was largely about the health benefits.

Can someone attend yoga, acknowledge that they know little about the culture and its origins, participate in the movements, and enjoy it freely?
I certainly understand the frustrations of affluent white people acting condescending about the activity. But the mere participation can't be racist.

Click to shrink...

That's what my wife has always done. She just likes how doing yoga feels. She's certainly not one to mock or denigrate anyone else's culture, and I think she'd groan real fucking hard at everything in this article.

 

[umop 3pisdn]

Postural yoga isn't even 'Indian', it's a multinational product, there are only like a dozen asanas with a scriptural basis, leaving out hundreds of others which were then invented in the years following colonialism, when India was both trying to reclaim it's identity through active reconstruction and entering into a global cultural exchange with largely western countries that superficially saw them as a place of magic and mysticism.

The orientalism surrounding postural yoga is a pretty big problem, especially when it isn't really a 'spiritual' practice at all (it's basically just calisthenics). People try to go to the sutras of Patanjali to try to find some kind of authenticity, but those sutras aren't even about postural yoga, but concentrative meditation apparently inspired by the contemplative tradition of Indian Buddhism. Basically, most of the cultural cachet of postural yoga actually depends directly on poor religious scholarship.

 

[Deleted member 14002]

admitted that White women (like her) were ideal consumers of yoga because such women desperately needed to believe that they are the “good kind” of White people; thecolorblind, well-travelled kind.

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Gaddamn. Wasn't expecting to hear the truth about what she's selling.

Can someone attend yoga, acknowledge that they know little about the culture and its origins, participate in the movements, and enjoy it freely?
I certainly understand the frustrations of affluent white people acting condescending about the activity. But the mere participation can't be racist.

Click to shrink...

Of course you can.

It's an activity, it's not racist

 

[Strelok]

Pretending to respect different cultures, and appropriating bits and pieces of their language and ideas without understanding or respecting them to look "woke" or whatever, drives me up the fucking wall. It is also way too common.

As the son of two African immigrants, it is infuriating how people who swear they are allies and believe in multiculturalism are so quick to compartmentalize bad behavior or deflect criticism for it. Whether it was the black kids on the basketball court yelling about how my cousin must be fighting lions and tigers in the jungle; the frat boys who tried to recruit me at college who ended up getting suspended for wearing blackface at a Halloween party; the dumbass white girl who would puff her stomach out and joke about being a "starving African baby"; people in our own damn neighborhood yelling at my Mom to go home when they heard her speaking her own language; and so on. All of this happening in very liberal areas of New York, no less.

It's a truly surreal thing, hearing all types of ignorance and fuckery about the Continent from whites who listen to rap music and use black slang AND black people who would offer vague praise of "the motherland" they've never been to and know nothing about. And it's pretty much part and parcel for any race or culture that isn't considered "standard".

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Amen.

 

[Deleted member 2226]

She's got a nice theory that dovetails with her pet peeves, but there's very little to actually back it up as a phenomenon. Tying performative virtue signaling and posturing to yoga seems pretty spurious and more a correlation than the intrinsic causal factor.

 

[Deleted member 14002]

Pretending to respect different cultures, and appropriating bits and pieces of their language and ideas without understanding or respecting them to look "woke" or whatever, drives me up the fucking wall. It is also way too common.

As the son of two African immigrants, it is infuriating how people who swear they are allies and believe in multiculturalism are so quick to compartmentalize bad behavior or deflect criticism for it. Whether it was the black kids on the basketball court yelling about how my cousin must be fighting lions and tigers in the jungle; the frat boys who tried to recruit me at college who ended up getting suspended for wearing blackface at a Halloween party; the dumbass white girl who would puff her stomach out and joke about being a "starving African baby"; people in our own damn neighborhood yelling at my Mom to go home when they heard her speaking her own language; and so on. All of this happening in very liberal areas of New York, no less.

It's a truly surreal thing, hearing all types of ignorance and fuckery about the Continent from whites who listen to rap music and use black slang AND black people who would offer vague praise of "the motherland" they've never been to and know nothing about. And it's pretty much part and parcel for any race or culture that isn't considered "standard".

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Yeah you're right.

You also shouldn't have to choose between hypocritical "allies" and people who openly hate you.

Must be super frustrating.

 

[shadowsdarknes]

This actually gets past people's mental filters before it comes out of their mouths? lawd

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Missed that part. Wow that's some stupid shit.
Then again, people with even a shred of empathy thinking they are immune to criticism on issues isn't new.

 

[Carnby]

Author meets two white women who act like this and suddenly it's an epidemic? Pffff.

 

[SlothmanAllen]

Most of the people that I know do Yoga for a sense of health and activity. I am don't know anyone who has taken it as far as what the author describes.

 

[Ether_Snake]

Doesn’t help that there are so many yoga centers pushing the superstitious bullshit. Just advertise them as exercises instead of energy-balance bullshit.

 

[Y2Kev]

I like to do yoga sometimes because it helps me relax. It's hard to think about work when you're thinking about breathing or whatever. I'm not a white woman and I don't say namaste all the time. I am sure a lot of people do it to keep up appearances but I really think a lot of people find it relaxing and enjoyable...

 

[Foffy]

Yoga and meditation clearly fall into the positions of Capitalism and the issues of commodification in the west. A great deal of spaces focus on affluence -- hence "whites only" -- and are marketed as becoming a more productive worker bee. This typically misses the mark for their more sincere realizations of being present, of seeing the world in a unified, nondual way, and alleviating suffering and negative beliefs. As someone with somewhat familiarity in these circles, for every place that focuses on donation-based payments and really being of service to others, there's about three others that overinflate costs and come off as "getting involved here gives you status". Just in New York City you can find these contrasts all over.

When these practices get hijacked, no matter the reason, it will produce problems. In America, it's not hard to see them marketed as tools to make white people more productive or some other supplementary benefit that's being suggested as the primary benefit. I'm sure that's a huge reason white women seem to be the "image" of yoga here, too.

 

[GrizzleBoy]

I understand the base argument, but I don't know if a personal experience is enough to write a whole article addressing something so vague and indirect as "white womanhood".

 

[Border]

As of 2017, over 40% of yoga practitioners earned over $75,000 a year, and 25% over $100,000 annually. In other words, yoga studios are the new country clubs.

This author has no idea how much country clubs actually cost.

Golf Digest pegs the annual price of an average private country club at $6000+, with various maintenance fees on top of that.

 

[Snack12367]

I really wasnt aware so many American Yoga goers were also doing it to appear cultured or well travelled.

I thought it was largely about the health benefits.

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Same. In the UK it's all about the Heath. I've never heard anyone say they did it to appear hip.

 

[Carnby]

As of 2017, over 40% of yoga practitioners earned over $75,000 a year, and 25% over $100,000 annually. In other words, yoga studios are the new country clubs.

This author has no idea how much country clubs actually cost.

Golf Digest pegs the annual price of an average private country club at $6000+, with various maintenance fees on top of that.

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"15 dollars per lesson is the new country club!"

Lol. Author needs to get out of their own ass.

 

[Pimienta]

Redefining racism, sounds exactly what's going on right now. Speak progressive hogwash in public, but still defend systematic racism in private.

 

[carlsojo]

I really wasnt aware so many American Yoga goers were also doing it to appear cultured or well travelled.

I thought it was largely about the health benefits.

Can someone attend yoga, acknowledge that they know little about the culture and its origins, participate in the movements, and enjoy it freely?
I certainly understand the frustrations of affluent white people acting condescending about the activity. But the mere participation can't be racist.

Click to shrink...

Yes. This is what normal people do.

 

[Orin_linwe]

I thought this topic was going to be connected to the 30 for 30 podcast about Bikram Yoga, and the sinister behind-the-scenes of its creator, and how it has proliferated in a kind of McDonalds-like-way.

Was listening to a segment of the Slate Culture Gabfest about this topic when I happened to browse this thread.

Not to derail, but it's an interesting listen. Here is a link to the podcast episode in question:

http://www.slate.com/articles/podca..._s_bikram_and_astrology.html?via=gdpr-consent

Discussion starts at 00:20:35 and ends at 00:35:00.

Here is a link to the original text:

https://30for30podcasts.com/

Again, not to derail; it was just something that was on my mind, and, perhaps has some (roundabout) connection to the OP.

Cheers.

 

[Cybit]

...people are stupid as hell.

We brought yoga to the west as deliberately.

Like, the people I worry about aren't the people the author talks about, it's people like the author themselves. The author (and the site in general) is already known for being full of shit. Makes me even madder that she's also Indian. She talks about "non-Indians not understanding the history" when she hasn't even read a damn history book about our background itself apparently.

http://www.slate.com/articles/doubl...s_not_cultural_appropriation_to_practice.html

What these arguments really demonstrate is how jejune the whole “cultural appropriation” charge can be—particularly when it’s wielded by people who know very little of the cultures they purport to protect. In the case of yoga, it completely ignores the agency of Indians themselves, who have been making a concerted effort to export yoga to the West since the late 19th century.

Back then, Indians saw getting Westerners interested in yoga as a way of undermining British colonialism. Britain’s colonial administrators tended to be contemptuous of Indian religion; indeed, they treated the purported backwardness of Indian thought and culture as justification for their continued rule. Indian nationalists believed, rightly, that if they could popularize their spiritual practices in the West, they would win support for independence.

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But Indian writers on cultural appropriation generally recognize what some Western champions of identity politics do not, which is that Indians have played an active, enthusiastic role in globalizing their spiritual practices. As Gita Mehta wrote in her great 1994 book Karma Cola: Marketing the Mystic East, “As our home industry expands on every front, at last it is our turn to mass market.”

That mass marketing continues up until this very day. Earlier this year, Narendra Modi, India’s right-wing nationalist prime minister, succeeded in getting the United Nations to recognize International Yoga Day on June 21, which was celebrated with mass yoga demonstrations worldwide. There was much to deride in International Yoga Day; it served as PR for India’s highly reactionary government and was widely seen as an affront to India’s Muslims. But it shows that the spread of yoga in the West is not just a story about Westerners raiding some pristine subcontinental reservoir of spiritual authenticity.

India is a country of dizzying dynamism, one that has always eagerly absorbed elements from other cultures into its own while proudly sharing the best of its own culture with the world. “All humanity’s greatest is mine,” wrote poet Rabindranath Tagore, who won the 1913 Nobel Prize in Literature. “The infinite personality of man (as the Upanishads say) can only come from the magnificent harmony of all human races. My prayer is that India may represent the co-operation of all the peoples of the world.” Tagore—who, incidentally, wrote India’s national anthem—founded a university whose motto translates to, “Where the whole world meets in a single nest.”

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This is what people think of when they think of the stereotypes of "identity politics". It's just some author wanting to masturbate to themselves about how amazingly "woke" they are and just shits on the agency of others. This is every bad stereotype of a liberal rolled into a single glorious place.

 

[Casual]

Lol talk about a sweeping generalization. Author seems like a nutcase.

 

[Lkr]

Namaste in bed shirts always get a chuckle out of me

 

[haotshy]

I haven't seen this yet, but I'm not surprised. I just attend lessons at my rock climbing gym that are included with my membership and a weekly free lesson at my apartment complex. I haven't been to a dedicated yoga studio yet, but I could see some of those people doing it for the wrong reasons/taking it too far.

 

[The Almighty Tria]

Man, I never realized that yoga was so "deep" for some of these people. That's crazy. I didn't realize so many created some weird ass cult around it.

I do yoga in my personal gym a couple times a week, but literally all I do are the stretches. I sure as hell am glad I never went to one of these classes, hahahaha.

 

[Liquid Plejades]

I know a few people like this. One of them I know through my friend as they are a couple. She is all about being a nomad and being an ally. You see her from time to time wearing some piece of jewellery from a distinct culture and talk about how the world needs to respect them and whatnot. She goes to this expensive yoga studio and my buddy who is her boyfriend went with her once and said it was all whites women and super fancy in an upscale location. But the irony is how she does all of this while she is an executive in a big company here in canada making six figures and her company is one of the key forces behind pipelines and hiring private security to push indigenous people away from their community and land. Her company also has a massive collection of native art they have been hoarding for decades, mostly
purchased from other rich aristocrats and Europeans that had stolen it long ago when they came into the new world. A few groups have tried to even purchase some of the art back to take to their communities but the request got denied by her since she’s on that committee for the company as well. It just seemed really hypocritical to me how she tries so hard to seem earthly and nomadic while she is actively also decimating those cultures and profiting from it.

You see them on instagram a lot. There’s this one white model who has tattoos from a few cultures even though she has no connection to hem. They are also all face tattoos which are very sacred, and usually you do it at certain ages or special ceremonies. I’ve seen a few people from those tribes comment on her images and mostly simply asking “Hey, don’t you find it disrespectful going to a random tattoo artist getting these sacred symbols done form our culture?” And she always lashes out at them saying they aren’t the owners of those symbols or some shit. And then she goes on to post an image the next day in some serene landscape doing a yoga pose with a quote that reads “preserve these indigenous cultures and respect them etc etc. “

I’ve seen this shit so much. I’m not hating on people for having money and enjoying doing yoga or appreciating some culture. But the two faces shit they pull off to front and make themselves seem saintly really pisses me off.

 

[Deleted member 19066]

...people are stupid as hell.

We brought yoga to the west as deliberately.

Like, the people I worry about aren't the people the author talks about, it's people like the author themselves. The author (and the site in general) is already known for being full of shit. Makes me even madder that she's also Indian. She talks about "non-Indians not understanding the history" when she hasn't even read a damn history book about our background itself apparently.

http://www.slate.com/articles/doubl...s_not_cultural_appropriation_to_practice.html





This is what people think of when they think of the stereotypes of "identity politics". It's just some author wanting to masturbate to themselves about how amazingly "woke" they are and just shits on the agency of others. This is every bad stereotype of a liberal rolled into a single glorious place.

Click to shrink...

She's writing about a particular type if yoga woman who rubs her, and others, the wrong way. I don't think she'll call out anyone with Wii Fit as a racist. At least that's the impression I get from this article.

 

[AlsoZ]

I know a few people like this. One of them I know through my friend as they are a couple. She is all about being a nomad and being an ally. You see her from time to time wearing some piece of jewellery from a distinct culture and talk about how the world needs to respect them and whatnot. She goes to this expensive yoga studio and my buddy who is her boyfriend went with her once and said it was all whites women and super fancy in an upscale location. But the irony is how she does all of this while she is an executive in a big company here in canada making six figures and her company is one of the key forces behind pipelines and hiring private security to push indigenous people away from their community and land. Her company also has a massive collection of native art they have been hoarding for decades, mostly
purchased from other rich aristocrats and Europeans that had stolen it long ago when they came into the new world. A few groups have tried to even purchase some of the art back to take to their communities but the request got denied by her since she’s on that committee for the company as well. It just seemed really hypocritical to me how she tries so hard to seem earthly and nomadic while she is actively also decimating those cultures and profiting from it.

You see them on instagram a lot. There’s this one white model who has tattoos from a few cultures even though she has no connection to hem. They are also all face tattoos which are very sacred, and usually you do it at certain ages or special ceremonies. I’ve seen a few people from those tribes comment on her images and mostly simply asking “Hey, don’t you find it disrespectful going to a random tattoo artist getting these sacred symbols done form our culture?” And she always lashes out at them saying they aren’t the owners of those symbols or some shit. And then she goes on to post an image the next day in some serene landscape doing a yoga pose with a quote that reads “preserve these indigenous cultures and respect them etc etc. “

I’ve seen this shit so much. I’m not hating on people for having money and enjoying doing yoga or appreciating some culture. But the two faces shit they pull off to front and make themselves seem saintly really pisses me off.

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How does your buddy put up with her two-faced bullshit?

 

[Hassel]

Are we going to repost every idiot blogger?
None of this is backed in fact.

I have good friends very involved in yoga and it’s about heath and wellness, nothing like is presented in this opinion article.

 

[AJx]

The author isn't saying every single white woman who does yoga is guilty. She is, however, bringing up a very valid point. Would you feel better if the article put a "many" or "some" in front of every reference to white women? This appropriation exists and should be condemned. If you're jumping on the author because you feel the article targets you, don't turn your nose up at the basket of deplorables.

 

[Deleted member 888]

In light of this new heightened awareness, I, perhaps naively, opened up to a fellow member at my yoga studio, a White woman and a self-described “liberal,” after she had made a pun, “Namastay Together,” out of the word “Namaste.” In our conversation, I confided in her how unsettled it left me feeling to constantly see and hear namaste reduced to a clever way to signal so-called inclusive politics, especially at a time when people who looked like me felt less and less comfortable speaking in our mother tongues in public.

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Taken as a whole, I’ve begun to wonder if this is why White women, especially those who consider themselves liberals, love yoga and the word “namaste” so much—it performs a sense of virtue-signaling which recenters Whiteness, all while providing a deflecting shield against scrutiny under the logic of “private spirituality.” It’s all the bragging rights of social justice without any of the humility or self-awareness.

Click to shrink...

In other words, the current (mis)use of namaste is not only a shining example of how White women (and those who seek to be identified with this group) tend to adopt a racialized otherness to perform a hip, cosmopolitan identity, especially through fashion that is sold as informal or lounge-wear (i.e., clothes you wear in private), but is also a uniquely North American brand of consumer-driven racism, something Ta-Nehisi Coates has diagnosed as a symptom of White hegemony and homogeniety:

“When you’re white in this country, you’re taught that everything belongs to you. You think you have a right to everything. … You’re conditioned this way. It’s not because your hair is a texture or your skin is light. It’s the fact that the laws and the culture tell you this. You have a right to go where you want to go, do what you want to do, be however—and people just got to accommodate themselves to you.”

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Ultimately, the colonization of yoga by White women is a shining example of what Coates identifies as an abiding principle of U.S. forms of White supremacy.

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Sounds like this author has some serious self-esteem issues and potential paranoid delusions.

The vast majority probably just go to Yoga because they want to go to Yoga or someone said it's healthy or they're lonely and after a sense of community.

Or large collections of women attend yoga to "virtue signal" I guess... Or to colonize Yoga.

If there are racist white women in your Yoga class you should probably be kicking them out or refusing them service. What maybe isn't so healthy is to be looking around at generic white women in a Yoga class and wondering how many of them are "virtue signaling"? Saying namaste or whatever, yeah, some people can be a bit clumsy and think it's all part of the "experience".

It is what it is, it's a fitness class and most are there to get fit, deal with anxiety or maybe even just try and make friends if lonely. This is coming across like the girl wears a Chinese dress to the Prom again. A very charged article throwing around terms like colonising whilst taking about Yoga. It's fine explaining an incorrect use of a phrase uttered with no ill intent, but try and not suggest it's a left over of colonisation or the reason we have Trump or something else overly dramatic.

 

[Threadkular]

I'm sure there's some validity to this article, but I also know so many people (and most coming into my head are white women) that are in recovery and who swear by yoga to keep them sober/clean. Hell so much of recovery is about giving up your identity, and I thought yoga encouraged that.

 

[Obvious]

Author got riled up over a cheesy pun, got in someone's grill over it, got fired.

 

[Atisha]

I need a chill pill. Maybe i'll do some low effort yoga moves?

 

[AJx]

Are we going to repost every idiot blogger?
None of this is backed in fact.

I have good friends very involved in yoga and it’s about heath and wellness, nothing like is presented in this opinion article.

Click to shrink...

Oh great. I am glad your good friends comprise the entirety of yoga practitioners.

 

[RustyNails]

Didn't Get Out touch on this? Like praising the qualities of "being black" from a point of view that is looking to devour someone. But as a minority I do not feel threatened by white people appropriating bits and pieces of my culture as long as they are willing to stand up to institutional racism and the white supremacy of our current administration.

 

[Liquid Plejades]

How does your buddy put up with her two-faced bullshit?

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I’ve asked him honestly and he has said a few times she is trying to find another gig but the money is way too good. I rarely see her so it doesn’t affect me. You can tell it bothers him as well.

 

[Deleted member 41271]

Judging by the anger of some people about this article, it hit a mark. That she isn't aware just *how* expensive country clubs are doesn't exactly disprove her observation.

If anything, the snobby "well, she doesn't know their true price" kinda shows what class of people are mad about her observations.

 

[Cybit]

She's writing about a particular type if yoga woman who rubs her, and others, the wrong way. I don't think she'll call out anyone with Wii Fit as a racist. At least that's the impression I get from this article.

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Her thesis is, per her own words

Ultimately, the colonization of yoga by White women is a shining example of what Coates identifies as an abiding principle of U.S. forms of White supremacy.

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Her entire blog and upcoming book are based around this idea that white women are "colonizing" yoga - when it ignores the fundamental idea that indians have been trying to push yoga to the west specifically as a way to fight colonization. Sooo yeah. IMO, it kinda makes her entire thesis sort of full of it, and this strikes greatly of her projecting her own insecurities as an Indian-American (which I 100% get as one myself) and our own identity in the US on to others, especially in the context of modern progressive politics and racial politics. You can't appropriate something from a culture when said culture is actively asking you to "appropriate" it and actively pushing it.

 

[Carnby]

Judging by the anger of some people about this article, it hit a mark. That she isn't aware just *how* expensive country clubs are doesn't exactly disprove her observation.

If anything, the snobby "well, she doesn't know their true price" kinda shows what class of people are mad about her observations.

Click to shrink...

Naw. It's an unfounded generalized bullshit click bait "article", and we're just calling it was it is.

 

[Jasnah]

Eh, I see a lot of insta-models and raw diet sponsored types in designer studios doing yoga. Meh. I don't doubt it may ruffle some people's feather, but it feels gatekeepy. My city offers free yoga in the local parks on certain days. The poors like to go there with other dirty locals. Drinks essential oil.

 

[jayu26]

feel closer to destitute and starving street children in India

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Hmm...yup, this is how it works. But more importantly, what did the learn from said street children..."slumdogs" if you will?

 

[Border]

Judging by the anger of some people about this article, it hit a mark. That she isn't aware just *how* expensive country clubs are doesn't exactly disprove her observation.

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Her own observation is that 60% of yoga class participants are making less than $75,000 per year. How does that make it a country club? The majority of attendees are middle-class at best.

 

[nel e nel]

As of 2017, over 40% of yoga practitioners earned over $75,000 a year, and 25% over $100,000 annually. In other words, yoga studios are the new country clubs.

This author has no idea how much country clubs actually cost.

Golf Digest pegs the annual price of an average private country club at $6000+, with various maintenance fees on top of that.

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Your argument makes no sense: you’re comparing annual membership fees with participant income.

A better analogy would be finding out what the average annual cost of a yoga studio is, or what the income distribution of golf club members is.

 

[Border]

Your argument makes no sense: you’re comparing annual membership fees with participant income.

A better analogy would be finding out what the average annual cost of a yoga studio is, or what the income distribution of golf club members is.

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Someone making $75K/year probably does not have six grand to drop on a country club. Yoga sessions are $10-15/each depending on the studio.......which already makes them more accessible and egalitarian than a country club, since you can attend as much or as little as your income allows. I know coffee shop baristas that go to yoga classes. I don't know any coffee shop baristas that have joined private country clubs.

 

[Deleted member 11413]

Someone making $75K/year probably does not have six grand to drop on a country club. Yoga sessions are $10-15/each depending on the studio.......which already makes them more accessible and egalitarian than a country club, since you can attend as much or as little as your income allows. I know coffee shop baristas that go to yoga classes. I don't know any coffee shop baristas that have joined private country clubs.

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Furthermore, there are plenty of places in many communities that offer yoga for free. Lots of community centers and public libraries do yoga classes, which are open to all members of the public and free of charge. Many public schools also incorporate yoga into their physical education curriculum.

Acting as if Yoga is some unattainable social status activity like going to a country club is asinine. Sure, I'm sure there are some exclusive, expensive yoga studios out there, but that's not how the majority of people are accessing yoga. It would be like complaining movie theaters have become inaccessible and too elite for the common man just because Cinebistro exists. There will always be luxury, exclusive versions of normal things because the wealthy want that in all aspects of their life.