We could say that about blackfacing.
Of course, and if somebody dons blackface and has no idea about the historical connotations of blackface to racism, then they're doing this not with malice in mind, which is fine. Fine until somebody points out that what they are doing could be construed as being offensive - in which case that person now has new information to act on.
Who gets offended by bellydancing though? Does anyone from the culture where it was invented care that white people are bellydancing? I really doubt it.
And that's the kicker - some things are offensive for historical reasons, like blackface. A lot of things aren't. You can't just come up with rules to regulate the behaviour of humans based on these exceptions if these rules you come up with are going to affect a whole crapload of more scenarios, like bellydancing and yoga.
Don't get me wrong: In my view this insulting effect is rather hard to produce and applies to rather few things. And i by no means want to judge all western belly dancers here. But i can fundamentally see the article's author's point.
Me? I think the author didn't have anything better to write about and couldn't come up with a topic. So she went with this, because her boss wanted something on his desk by 5.
I'm trying to think of an example of when I'd be offended by somebody "appropriating" Polish culture somehow. The only things I can think of are examples of people wanting to be douchebags on purpose.
You baked a pie and you want to call it a pierog? Knock yourself out! You want to do the traditional Silesian folk dance? And you're not Polish? Whatever, what do I care? Unless these people are attempting to be insulting on purpose, then who cares what they do? Let them do what they want, they're not hurting anyone.
It's just such a strange thought to me that.. okay, say that culture A came up with activity X 150 years before culture B came up with it. So now culture B has to worry about how to engage in activity X? It just doesn't work on a general level.
It makes far more sense to me to let people do what they want, and if there's accusasions of asshattery, investigate these allegations on a one on one basis. Having a rule on how you can behave if you are about to engage in an activity first invented by another culture.. That seems silly to me.. and unproductive. Be respectful, do what you want, and if people have issue with it, we'll take it from there. That makes a lot more sense to me.
Her article would make a lot more sense to me if it was about bellydancing in particular. "These people are insulting belly dancing heritage" or whatever. Okay, I might disagree that this is likely, but anything's possible, right? Maybe belly dancing in some places is a sacred activity akin to baptism in Christianity or marriage or a funeral or whatever? Maybe some cultures really do have specific rules about bellydancing and how it can be performed and it's really serious business? And these people are in an uproar and are setting buildings on fire and marching through the streets and stuff? And maybe it really does hurt them emotionally to have all this unsanctioned bellydancing take place performed under totally not acceptable conditions? I have no idea, I don't keep up with the belly dancing world, maybe all this is really happening.. and maybe all the white people who bellydance are doing it as a joke - to annoy and insult all those people marching through the streets. Okay, if that's the sort of thing the article was about, alright! Now that's a decent article. It has a point, a hypothesis, and an explanation of how it was arrived at. It's specific and seemingly reasonable, as a point.
But no, she had to write an article about "cultural appropriation", a very vague and general concept. She also made it very much about race. She made it about absolutes. And that's just bs, because it's impossible to generalize on that level. It's making me think that the author just picked a random possible "issue" out of thin air to write about because her boss wanted something on his desk by 5pm... or she has a bone to pick with someone or something. Either way, not something I'd label as a good or even decent point or even one that's possible to see.
