• Absurd Article of the Day: ‘White’ Belly Dancing

     

    Randa Jarrar has some stern words for white women who belly dance:

    Arab women are not vessels for white women to pour themselves and lose themselves in; we are not bangles or eyeliner or tiny bells on hips. We are human beings. This dance form is originally ours, and does not exist so that white women can have a better sense of community; can gain a deeper sense of sisterhood with each other; can reclaim their bodies; can celebrate their sexualities; can perform for the female gaze. Just because a white woman doesn’t profit from her performance doesn’t mean she’s not appropriating a culture. And, ultimately, the question is this: Why does a white woman’s sisterhood, her self-reclamation, her celebration, have to happen on Arab women’s backs?

     

    Ouch. I hope you dancing whiteys are ashamed of yourselves. Celebrating on Arab women’s backs? That’s pretty callous – when will you pale-skinned cultural appropriators realise that Arab women are human beings?

    I can sympathise with Jarrar. I come from an unashamedly racist family. Sometimes, my mother would cook us Chinese food and provide chopsticks with which to eat it. My father would sometimes read me stories from One Thousand and One Nights before I went to sleep. Even my school was institutionally racist – they forced us to culturally appropriate Arabic numerals!

    All I can do now is shut up, listen, and try to do better next time.

     

    Category: Miscellaneous

    Article by: Notung

    I started as a music student, studying at university and music college, and playing trombone for various orchestras. While at music college, I became interested in philosophy, and eventually went on to complete an MA in Philosophy in 2012. An atheist for as long as I could think for myself, a skeptic, and a political lefty, my main philosophical interests include epistemology, ethics, logic and the philosophy of religion. The purpose of Notung (named after the name of the sword in Wagner’s Der Ring des Nibelungen) is to concentrate on these issues, examining them as critically as possible.