Shreena Gandhi, PhD
Liberal academia has now pulled the latest overt sign of “white supremacy” out of their ever-widening rears to shove in the face of every white fitness enthusiast in the Western World.
Practicing YOGA can now be considered a “sign” of white supremacy.
White people who do a downward-facing dog are contributing to a “system of power, privilege, and oppression,” according to a Michigan State University professor.
Shreena Gandhi, a religious studies professor at Michigan State, claims in an article she recently co-authored that Americans who practice yoga are contributing to white supremacy and promote the “yoga industrial complex.”
Professor Gandhi argues that at best, Yoga is a form of “cultural appropriation”.
The two argued “the explosion of yoga studios, yoga video, apps, yoga pants, and other yoga swag over the last two decades is evidence” of the “(mis)appropriation of yoga” that “is part of systemic racism” built on “the labor of black people and people of the global south.”
“We would argue one of the goals of white supremacy is to buffer white people from the pain that comes from the process of exchanging cultural grounding for the unearned power and privilege of whiteness,” they wrote. “…this modern-day trend of cultural appropriation of yoga is a continuation of white supremacy and colonialism, maintaining the pattern of white people consuming the stuff of culture that is convenient and portable, while ignoring the well-being and liberation of Indian people.”
She is now calling for the “decolonization” of Yoga…
But white people who twist their bodies in different yoga positions can do something about it, according to Gandhi.
“Given a deeper analysis of yoga, white yoga practitioners and teachers can engage in yoga in a decolonizing way that reduces harm and seeks greater cultural accountability,” she wrote.
“Especially during this time when the underbelly of capitalism — white supremacy, cisheteropatriarchy, and xenophobia – is being exposed, it is imperative that everyone, especially those who have access to spiritual practices like yoga, ask difficult questions of ourselves and one another,” the two concluded. “We must ask, in what ways are we complicit in a system that harms people of color, queer and trans people, poor people, people with disabilities, and immigrants?”
I absolutely agree that those who practice Yoga should learn about the heritage and culture from which it originated. But at the end of the day, Yoga is just a form of exercise. Nothing more, nothing less.
Furthermore, would it not be more racist for these suburban whites to avoid this practice because it originated in a non-Western society?!
Source: NY Post
Complete moroon