{"id":24577,"date":"2014-03-07T09:08:55","date_gmt":"2014-03-07T14:08:55","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/?p=24577"},"modified":"2017-04-23T09:01:48","modified_gmt":"2017-04-23T13:01:48","slug":"white-belly-dancers-are-appropriating-inappropriately-says-salon-writer","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/2014\/03\/07\/white-belly-dancers-are-appropriating-inappropriately-says-salon-writer\/","title":{"rendered":"White belly dancers are “appropriating” inappropriately, says Salon<\/em> writer"},"content":{"rendered":"

That vast invisible knapsack of white privilege is even deeper and more capacious than we thought: Randa Jarrar<\/a> writes that the sight of white belly dancers is something she cannot stand:<\/p>\n

Google the term \u201cbelly dance\u201d and the first images the search engine offers are of white women in flowing, diaphanous skirts, playing at brownness. How did this become acceptable?<\/p>\n

The term \u201cbelly dance\u201d itself is a Western one. In Arabic, this kind of dance is called Raqs Sharqi<\/em>, or Eastern dance. Belly dance, as it is known and practiced in the West, has its roots in, and a long history of, white appropriation of Eastern dance. As early as the 1890s in the U.S., white \u201cside-show sheikhs\u201d managed dance troupes of white women, who performed belly dance at world\u2019s fairs (fun trivia: Mark Twain made a short film of a belly dancer at the 1893 fair). Many white women who presently practice belly dance are continuing this century-old tradition of appropriation, whether they are willing to view their practice this way or not.<\/p>\n

[…]<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s Arab face,\u201d my friend Nadine once said, pointing at an invitation from a white acquaintance of hers. The invitation was printed on card stock and featured the woman and a dozen of her white friends dressed in Orientalist garb with eye makeup caked on for full kohl effect and glittery accessories. We wanted to call these women up and say, \u201cHow is this OK? Would you wear a dashiki and rock waspafarian dreads and take up African dance publicly? Wait,\u201d we\u2019d probably say, \u201cdon\u2019t answer that.\u201d<\/p>\n

The most disturbing thing is when these women take up Arabic performance names \u2014 Suzy McCue becomes Samirah Layali. This name and others like it make no sense in Arabic. This, in my estimation, completes the brownface Orientalist fa\u00e7ade. A name. A crowning. A final consecration of all the wrongs that lead up to the naming.<\/p>\n

Women I have confronted about this have said, \u201cBut I have been dancing for 15 years! This is something I have built a huge community on.\u201d These women are more interested in their investment in belly dancing than in questioning and examining how their appropriation of the art causes others harm. To them, I can only say, I\u2019m sure there are people who have been unwittingly racist for 15 years. It\u2019s not too late. Find another form of self-expression. Make sure you\u2019re not appropriating someone else\u2019s.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

H\/T to Steve Muhlberger, who wondered “what kind of purity test will would-be dancers have to pass?”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

That vast invisible knapsack of white privilege is even deeper and more capacious than we thought: Randa Jarrar writes that the sight of white belly dancers is something she cannot stand: Google the term \u201cbelly dance\u201d and the first images the search engine offers are of white women in flowing, diaphanous skirts, playing at brownness. […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":35193,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[28,370,53],"tags":[1126,262,238,912,99,43],"class_list":["post-24577","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-media","category-middle-east","category-politics","tag-culturalappropriation","tag-culture","tag-offensensitivity","tag-privilege","tag-racism","tag-women"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/06\/favicon.png","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p2hpV6-6op","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24577","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=24577"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24577\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":24579,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24577\/revisions\/24579"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/35193"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=24577"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=24577"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=24577"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}