Thursday, May 03, 2018

Apparently white people are not allowed to do yoga anymore.

This is so friggin' half-caf latte I can't even.

I had never been to a yoga class where I hadn't lost awareness of my surroundings, but under the pagoda in Tallala, my attention would just hop from one colored Lululemon sports bra to the next.
I felt surrounded by mirrors, like I was watching the classes from outside myself, poised and ready to Instagram the next shape I made and acutely aware of my complicity in Mary-Kate's spectacle of appropriation.
 
Because, y'know, Mary-Kate is a white chick. White chicks can't yoga like brown chicks, everybody knows that. Make mine a soy latte.

I knew that when a cultural practice is co-opted by the masses it wasn't just about class, that there was also the loss of meaning and transfer of power when tradition becomes mainstream, but here I was, taking notes down on my phone about my fellow yogi's favorite brand of carob chocolate.
I knew I was complicit in a festival of self-absorption and cultural appropriation but there was a small part of me that had sipped the kombucha and thought transcendence might strike me. I was secretly waiting for some sort of insight. In the mornings, we were encouraged to write out our thoughts in a stream of consciousness and I hoped for even a single line of profundity but the closest I got was earnest descriptions of how beautiful the beaches were.
 
You want an insight? You are a vapid, catty bitch. Start with that.

The Phantom

Update, welcome you vast unruly horde from Instapundit!

4 comments:

Unknown said...

I so love this post.

Genie said...

So, bad tempered Yoga lady - umm, maybe it's YOU.

Unknown said...

Hey Phantom, are you the same Phantom that used to haunt Tangled Web back in the day?

The Phantom said...

Welcome, friends. Glad you liked it.

Recently, the last year or two, a yoga club got de-listed at a Canadian university because the instructor was a White girl. SJWs screamed CULTURAL APPROPRIATION!!!! RAAAACIST!!!! and made a fuss, the university folded. This latest thing required comment.

Now, I used to be an instructor in a similar discipline, Tai Chi. They don't come any whiter than me, but the Tai Chi master decided I was good enough anyway. Even though I was a round-eye, and kinda weird too. He let me have some beginners classes, which I loved to teach. That was a long time ago and far from here, but if I can teach Tai Chi then Mary-Kate can teach yoga.

Carl, I'm not that Phantom. There's lots of Phantoms in the world, I guess. ~:)