Sure! Because, if I’m reading my tomato-grower’s handbook correctly, the “Don’t worry if your plants aren’t beautiful. After all, they started out as mere Peruvian weeds.” would suggest the Italians appropriated them from the Peruvians or someone in between – Missionary explorers of some type? Making the Italians drop tomatoes from their cuisine would still leave us with salsas from Central and South America, plus Italian pesto and al fredo sauces, wouldn’t it?
And modern people in the USA should quit polluting their sushi menus with “California Rolls” and “Philadelphia Rolls” and other abominations because the originating culture didn’t have access to ingredients like avocado and creamed cheese?
Wow! It would be like all those ancient Chinese movements used to thoroughly kick someone’s ass were just calisthenic exercises to prepare Buddhist priests for the rigors of intense meditation on the Vedas and Upanishads and Koans and such, but then those movements were taught separately from the mental and spiritual stuff as “just a system of fighting.”
Or deteriorate.
Like the fighting techniques that spread from the Far East to the Western world have deteriorated (spiritually) to the point that kids in California just refer to all of those fight classes as “Kr-Rotty”
Actually a good friend of mine complained about this back in the late 1980’s. The University of California had changed the Hatha Yoga (or some variant of Yoga, I can’t remember precisely which) classes to “Mindful Stretching” classes because there were suspicions that the teachers were mentioning things like spiritual connections and mystical (non Christian) philosophies. So the instructors had to change the name of the classes and were told to avoid mentioning Chakras, spirit, atman, any divine or mystical entities whatsoever, et cetera. My friend said the courses were just boring stretching routines without the content from India’s philosophies and religions.
–G!
*And don’t, for that matter, pretend you’re more authentic by skipping the sushi and ordering Tonkatsu or Tempura. Battered-and-boiled-in-oil cooking was introduced to Japan by the Portuguese. :smack:
I take your point, and I don’t disagree. I guess what I’m saying, though, is that by and large yoga wasn’t brought to the West by westerners who traveled to India and picked and chose certain superficial bits of the system to take home, if I understand the history correctly. It was brought here by experienced Indian yogis who were fully versed in the discipline and made their own choices as to how to adapt it to a western audience. If we second-guess their decisions, is that perhaps culturally arrogant?
It’s fine, the whole idea is getting the right color shoe polish.
The main thing that’s bothered me about people who complain about appropriation of Native American symbols and also the people who say that it is no big deal - there’s lots of assumptions that Native Americans are some monolithic bloc with similar beliefs, practices, and opinions. Some Plains Indians may rightly consider it part of their culture, but that doesn’t mean that some coastal tribe should care.
And of course, wearing an “Indian” Halloween costume often turns out to be as accurate if someone dressed as “American” for Halloween, wearing fanny packs, fat suits, and such.
What’s more, the name “tonkatsu” is half English (from “cutlet”), and we have forced them to adopt our language. We even forced them to use an entire writing system for foreign words, mostly English!
The controversy in Washington isn’t as much over Native Americans as a mascot. I mean, yeah, that’s part of it. But the biggest issue is that “Redskin” is considered to be a racial slur.
Twenty years ago, I actually would’ve supported that.
Exactly. We would never tolerate a sports team called the Niggers or the Chinks. So, why do we accept the Redskins?
ETA: For the same reason, the Cleveland Indians get a lot of flak over their mascot, which is a really awful red-skinned caricature of a Native American.
[bolding mine] Is it though? I’ve never heard anyone use that term before except when referring to the football team. I don’t even think of Native Americans when I hear that term, I immediately think of the team. IMHO, some people are just actively seeking out things they think some other group should be offended about. It’s getting ridiculous.
I know this is supposed to be a joke but when one of the fundamental rules of copyrights is that only creative works of expression are protected—not scientific concepts—it’s just not funny.
The nitpick is supposed to be that the term is “patent”, not “copyright”. Anyhoo.
Cultural genocide? Hindi, the language whence Yoga terms are derived, is spoken by around 900 million people. 4th largest in the world. In fact, Hindi is squeezing out many other native Indian languages. Hinduism, the religious background of Yoga, has about 1 billioin followers. 3rd largest in the world. Again, also squeezing out other religions in India. Both are growing rapidly and have spread around the world. (The largest religious building in my area is a Hindu temple. They set off a lot of fireworks for Diwali.)
Genocide this isn’t.
I wonder what would happen if the student council at Maharishi University in Iowa banned transcendental meditation classes for the same reasons.
My mother makes Polish food on Christmas – is my dad still allowed to eat it, even though he’s not Polish?
Uh, yeah, it kinda is. And of course it’s connected with Native Americans – it’s their freaking logo. It may not be as common as “kike” or “nigger” but it’s a slur all right. Just because YOU aren’t as familiar with it doesn’t mean it doesn’t exist. :rolleyes:
