Said Laura Humpf, quoted in "Seattle yoga teacher’s ‘Undoing Whiteness’ class: Founded on deep purpose, it’s triggered outrage" (Seattle Times).
“I was seeing white people show up in yoga spaces in racist ways,” says Humpf.... Humpf opened Rainier Beach Yoga in 2014. She says the practice coupled with reflecting on white supremacy’s role in society helped her understand how racism manifests itself internally, including defensiveness, perfectionism and the “white savior complex.” It’s these attitudes, among others, the class seeks to neutralize.That name is strangely similar to my own. And the image of self-purifiers inventing their own pose as the word "oppression" is shouted out at them and worrying about the racism lurking inside their body while proclaiming their conscious mind "woke"... it's just too silly to worry about.
The evening workshops feature Humpf and co-facilitator RW Alves sounding off words such as “oppression” and “liberation” to about a dozen students. The paired participants then physically interpret them, posing to form human sculptures. The exercise is one of many intended to highlight how both body and mind can absorb “the conditioning of whiteness.”...
People attracted to the class are mostly racial-justice-minded white people looking to go beyond an “intellectualized” view of how racism harms everyone, according to student Anne Althauser.
“When this ‘Undoing Whiteness’ yoga class came up, I felt like it answered two cravings of mine — to work through racism and how I hold whiteness in my body, and to bring an anti-racist lens to an appropriated practice that so many of us white folks participate in. If I’m only “woke” in mind but not body, I will only continue playing out harmful, subliminal racist actions unintentionally,” says Althauser, a longtime yoga practitioner....
And isn't yoga cultural appropriation?
The song playing over the hotel lobby speaker while I'm trying to write this is "Play That Funky Music, White Boy."
IN THE COMMENTS: This story made me think of Jules Feiffer, so I was happy to see tcrosse had the same feeling and found the perfect cartoon for the occasion. ADDED: Here's the link to the great cartoon! Sorry, I'd forgotten it.
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230 comments:
«Oldest ‹Older 201 – 230 of 230Swede is right:
When surviving is no longer a struggle, when shelter, food, security, and a mate are not challenges that occupy our every waking moment, certain humans can wander way down a long, dumb road that leads to this.
It's almost like self-destruction is something people create because they realize without struggle, our lives can become basically meaningless. So they have to find, or make, a substitute.
I've often thought along those lines, as well. We need to conquer real obstacles--those of survival--in order to feel truly human and truly alive. These peurile and illogical 'issues' only arise when we are bored.
Why are all White people responsible for the supposed dysfunctions of White culture when no Black people are responsible for the dysfunctions of Black culture?
"How was qutb, an Egyptian a relative,"
Because he was a sayyid, a descendant of the Prophet, as am I (according to my ancestor).
A recent genealogical discovery by my mother.
Apparently our Turkish ancestors claimed to be sayyids.
It is these things, repeated with almost tedious regularity, that created "white privilege".
Rourke's Ford
fascinating, my family at least one branch might be conversos going way back, qutb was already woke to Islamism, by the time the Egyptian education ministry sent him to America, an illconsidered decision in retrospect,
more first world problems:
https://www.powerlineblog.com/archives/2019/06/sacred-conversations-draw-attention-of-civil-rights-commissioner.php
I though Jared Diamond's big thing was he explained the New World and Africa's backwardness was due to lack of 4-legged work animals (Oxen, Horses, etc) and coal iron etc.
Of course, that doesn't explain the lack of row boats, sailing ships, the wheel, and everything else. OR why Zebras weren't domesticated. OR explain why llamas weren't used more effectively. OR why all the parts of Eurasia that had those things were still backward.
The Japanese went into 17th Century hibernation until 1870, and 71 years later they were attacking us at Pearl Harbor. The Africans had contract with Europeans starting in 1500, and they're still some ways behind. Its not all climate and horses.
Lileks has an old ad saying "Rainier is sunnier".
The New World wasn't backward, even in racist early-modern-European terms; at least the Incas and Aztecs we know had tremendously sophisticated technologies, astronomy, medicine, and great cities. I've seen H.L. Gates on the TeeVee marveling at the ruins of Great Zimbabwe, but come on.
Horses couldn't make it in sub-Saharan Africa (they died by the 10's of K's in WWI); oxen are useful but not versatile--they need a lot of time to digest their food, and those back legs are for steering only--not good draft animals overall. Zebras are not just horses with stripes--again, not suited for service.
Africa lacks many good natural harbors and the bigger rivers mostly either lead nowhere much and/or have shoals and rapids not far inland, reducing their utility.
The challenges faced by Africans differed from those faced by other groups who (on current understanding) left by choice or force. (Do you ever hear any non-Africans complaining that their ancestors must have been run out of Mother Africa by bigger, meaner tribes?)
Narr
I don't
"defensiveness, perfectionism and the “white savior complex.” " well, let's see, defensiveness because one, as a white person, is being accused of a horrible crime (racism) with no evidence except this "systemic" BS. Perfectionism is bad? I guess being careless and sloppy is how they want surgeons and even truck drivers to be? Yeah, I want that 16-wheeler to be all over the road because perfectionism is racist. In the modern world a corp not full of perfectionists will not last long. White savior complex? Whites are certainly being called on to solve all these problems whether they want to or not. So the entire premise is wrong.
OR why Zebras weren't domesticated.
Zebras and African elephants are not easily domesticated. Indian elephants are apparently quite docile.
Wisconsin is going for Pilosi I am sure. The blue wall will hold at, tariffs for heavy industry and industrial academics.
I had a great opportunity to startup one of our plants in Thailand, chon buri, and got to live there for two years. Thai elephants have to work for a living and often lift logs etc. I have a pic of my daughter being lifted in an elephants trunk!
That's hilarious.
It's hard to imagine the white saviour Humpf can do yoga with her sphincter clenched so tight.
If you accept that the modern world is the creaton of people of European ancestry, you can go a number of ways. You can say that the modern world is wonderful, and that the people of European ancestry are wonderful people for creating it.
Or you can say that they modern world is Hell, because it is achieved at the expense of irreparable damage to the natural world and human institutons, and so people of European ancestry are devils. Or you can say that the modern world, wonderful or terrible, is only coincidentally the creation creation of people of European ancestry.
None of these interpretations are more empiracally derved than any other.
There is something concrete that can be learned from that.
wede said...
Life has gotten too easy.
Stupid shit like this is exhibit A.
We were built for conflict
I assent and dissent.
I accept Ayn Rand observation that :
First Handers' concern is reshape physical Nature while Second Handers' concern is how to control First Handers
To that end conflict is incited by the latter against former. Exhibit A - Karl Marx
Lewis,
The one empirical fact there is that the modern world is the creation of people of European ancestry. That is ubiquitous, true down to the tiniest and most mundane factor or object, and down to the fact of life itself for nearly all humans alive.
Inquire into anything, everything, about how people live in any country, no matter how obscure or exotic, what they look like, what they wear, what they eat, the homes they live in, the architecture of their cities, the forms of their labor, the nature of their laws, and even their religions and languages.
That is the scope of the European conquest. It changed every last thing that could be changed. And it is still doing so.
Narr, you dork: a counterexample is a counterexample, and in neither case was I referring to the way things are now, but rather when they first happened.
You can't spend more than a few minutes in Mombasa or Zanzibar and not realize that the Arab influence and contact goes waaaay back; the Arabs didn't just start coming in 1945.
Agreed, Buwaya, but if you believe Diamond, European dominance is a creation of impersonal forces like geography and climate. There was no "excellence" involved, just random chance.
I like to think that the genius of Western Civ, exemplified by America, is its capacity for self-governance. Ideally, America consists of geographically bound deep and rich social social networks that have little to do with government, especially the federal government.
Michael K said...
OR why Zebras weren't domesticated.
Zebras and African elephants are not easily domesticated. Indian elephants are apparently quite docile
I have read, most notably in Guns, Germs, and Steel, that zebras are not easily domesticated. The Russians set out deliberately to create domesticated pet fox. And did it in 5 or 6 fox generations. You can buy one now if you want. Can't breed one here. They only send over neutered ones.
How many generations of zebras have coexisted with humans in Africa? Did Africans even make an attempt to domesticate them? Did they give up because it was too hard? Honestly, does anyone have any clue how long it took for humans to domesticate horses?
Same with llamas and alpacas in South America. And in all of the two American continents, why in the world did they never develop and use the wheel for transportation? The Inca empire had an extensive system of paved roads- apparently more extensive than South and Central American roads today. BUT NO WHEELS!
Dogs seem to have co-evolved with us. And from some things I've read recently, cats domesticated themselves, learning how to live among humans without ever actually getting tamed and used like dogs are.
buwaya,
"Inquire into anything, everything, about how people live in any country, no matter how obscure or exotic..."
No kidding. One of my few, prized souvenirs from my time living in South Sudan is a bit of iron-refinery slag; the knowledge of how to refine iron with a bloomery--and even the idea that this is possible--seemed totally lost. Maybe a few old people knew how to make bark-cloth, though no one ever seemed to actually do it. These things were totally replaced by cheap market goods; people still made woven baskets and clay pots, however.
Kirk Parker wrote:
. . .
No kidding. One of my few, prized souvenirs from my time living in South Sudan is a bit of iron-refinery slag; the knowledge of how to refine iron with a bloomery--and even the idea that this is possible--seemed totally lost. Maybe a few old people knew how to make bark-cloth, though no one ever seemed to actually do it. These things were totally replaced by cheap market goods; people still made woven baskets and clay pots, however.
6/11/19, 10:32 PM
But consider the Polynesians. They migrate across hundreds or thousands of miles of deep ocean using especially designed double hulled canoes, like giant catamarans. They find a new island chain, settle in, and lose the art of making these open ocean transports.
Untl they need the knowledge again, generations later. Then they start to build the ocean-going canoes again. Without literacy, without written records.
People are amazing creatures.
So long Kirk. You start by calling Diamond an idiot, and then me a dork, because your counterexample doesn't make sense to me.
And don't put words in my mouth. Neither Arabs nor 1945 had anything to do with what I said.
Nor anything Diamond said, I'd wager.
Narr
Sleepy-bye!
The problem with Diamond-style arguments re the European explosion is that we know too much.
The conquests were events that are documented in considerable detail. Sometimes down to minor tactics and hand-to-hand fights.
And that was the critical matter here, that in every case there was a fight, short or extended, that was won in nearly every case. The fight and the victory determined everything else. It is always some battle or war that determines that some group of aborigines eventually ends up adopting trousers.
And in nearly every case, up to the mid 19th century, these conquests were undertaken by some laughably small party of men, beating much larger numbers of locals.
But the words they are speaking... are ENGLISH!!
But the words they are speaking... are ENGLISH!!
And their music usese the European (Greek) twelve tone scale and Europena music theory.
narciso @6:51:
Your link - to the U.S. Civil Rights' commissioner's letter to the mayor of Minneapolis - is highly amusing.
"Then [the Polynesians] start to build the ocean-going canoes again. Without literacy, without written records."
I'm sorry, but I have to put a [citation needed] flag on this statement. I can't think of any cases where Polynesian seafaring knowledge/technology, once lost, was able to re-establish itself without direct transferral from other islands where those traditions still remained.
Needham mentions, I think, the European musical scale (mean-tone register?) as actually based on Chinese harmonic studies. Can't recall the transmission route though.
Narr
And I could be wrong
The yoga cultural appropriation issue has already been called out by Mahatma Gandhi himself
https://youtu.be/hBMc9s8oDWE
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