The Response to Dye-ing Culture

After my article on the way Color Run™ and similar for-profit charity runs like Run or Dye™, Color Me Rad, and the Color Vibe appropriate the Indian festival Holi in order to make money, Jessica Nixon, spokeswoman for the Color Run™ responded with the following letter:

Hello,

I recently read your article “Dye-ing Culture: Color Runs™, White-Washing Holi Since 2012”. 

I want to say I am truly sorry that you feel the The Color Run is defrauding the Holi festival. I can assure you, that is the last thing we would want. I feel that one of your main concerns is that you could not find on our Website where the idea for The Color Run originated.

The inspiration for The Color Run was derived from Disneyland’s World of Color (we use wet “paint” for part of our event), color festivals such as Holi, and day glow paint parties. This is a great question and answer that we should add to our FAQ list on our Website. I am not in charge of our Website, but I will look into having that added. 

As for the part where you question our charity efforts, let me explain. As it states on our FAQ page, we are a for profit event company. However, we choose to give back. In every city we hold our event, we make a donation to a charity, usually a local charity involved in that community. There are three ways in which we help our charity partners. You can go to this link to find out more.  

Please let me know if there is anything else I can clarify.

Jessica Nixon

 

Though this was an incredibly polite response to my accusations of the Color Run™ co-opting Holi to turn a profit, it doesn’t exactly address my concerns:

The connection between the Disneyland show and day glow parties is tenuous at best because on the website, in the FAQ section, Color Run™ even liken the paint to “powdered sugar” and in their promo there are no traces of wet paint. It all looks like Holi’s colored powder.

It is important to highlight that the nature of this run, as they say themselves and as I’ve repeated multiple times, is to make money. Though they have said they have raised $600,000 for a variety of local charities, because they are not listed on Charity Navigator and because they do not disclose on their website how much of every dollar spent on registration or merchandise gets donated. There really is no way to check up on them. Any profiting off of Holi is incompatible with and disrespectful of the purpose of the event: While Holi has taken on a variety of meanings over the centuries, from the triumph of good over evil in holy texts to the greeting of spring, it has always been a community celebration. In India, currently, it remains one of the most unifying events as color play transcends religious and social divides – it’s like an annual block party. And even in the US, most campus or community Holi festivals will charge at the entrance but donate every dollar to a South Asian or local charity. Therefore, Color Run™ is not only appropriating culture, but they are misusing and perverting it as well.

Also, in any country that is home to the Indian diaspora, celebrating Holi is incredibly special because it’s one the few moments when brown people enjoy the rapt attention of their non-brown friends – where we don’t have to make fun of Bollywood movies or promise them samosas to make our culture seem more interesting and accessible. Holi is so important in the way hyphenated Indians are able to share their culture with their friends. Any misuse, then, of the culture ruins any attempt to properly share it.

I’m not just trying to stand up for the inclusion of a traditional festival in the roster of inspirations for a profit-earning charity run (though they did add it after my article).  And while I appreciate Ms. Nixon’s attempt to make peace and clarify, it’s not enough to just stick in a mention of Holi in the FAQ where it will be generally ignored. When we are denied the chance to share our culture properly and when we allow others to ignore the influence of our traditions, ignorance increases. And where there is ignorance there is fear and violence. It’s impossible to separate a simple moment of appropriation from the vast array of issues that follow – there will always be a connection between something as banal as calling something ‘ghetto’ and the continued institutionalized persecution, oppression, and violence towards Black people.

If this seems superficial or just one drop in the ocean, please remember one of the most egregious acts of cultural appropriation – the adoption of the Swastika by Nazi Germany. Hitler and his crew were big into Indian history and ancient texts.  The reason they called themselves ‘Aryan’ is because they believed they were descended from the Mughal conquerers who invaded and ruled Northern India and modern-day Persia.  Along with this pseudo-racial designation, Nazis began to utilize aspects of Indian tradition, the Swastika most prominently, for their campaigns.  Before that point in history, the Swastika was a symbol of peace and harmony in South Asian tradition and often used during Hindu, Buddhist, Jain, and Sikh religious ceremonies. The use of the Swastika by peoples other than South Asians rendered the symbol devoid of its original meaning and entirely a vehicle of Western hatred. To this day, South Asians sometimes fear using the Swastika in their cultural proceedings because they fear a violent response from onlookers.   We are practically no longer able to use a symbol that held so much importance to us because another group borrowed it and altered its purpose. I am not saying acts of cultural appropriation are on level with Nazism, but I am saying that current examples of appropriation may turn into something much darker if allowed to continue.

The particular occurrence of Western expropriation of non-Western culture in the Holi-Color Run debacle is only one in a very long laundry list. So if we let this one slide, we are letting our Sikh brothers get patted down by the TSA without comment while models walk the runway in Milan with ‘turbans.’ And cultural appropriation doesn’t stick to just one community – by ignoring the Color Run™’s apathy toward proper citation of cultural origins we are allowing for the continuation of people wearing ‘sexy squaw’ outfits to Halloween parties and music festivals while Native women are some of the most common victims of sexual violence in North America. When we ignore one moment of appropriation, we begin to overlook the other occurrences and dangerous results of it.

50 Shades of Abuse

After the usual upset of New Years and the social justice sobriety of MLK Day, it makes perfect sense that the year’s most problematic romance would arrive in theaters on the next big emotionally difficult day – Valentines. 50 Shades of Grey has been booed out of the stalls ever since it was given a for sure day of release. Every blogger with a laptop has been denouncing it as an incorrect representation of the BDSM community and as the glorification of domestic violence. All of this may be true, but it is definitely untrue that every one of these bloggers is hell-bent on the eradication of domestic violence because they’ve been a lot less vocal about other forms of very real abuse.

https://twitter.com/American_Charm/status/566025072503435264

https://twitter.com/CollectiveShout/status/566061682468745216

The major war cry of those against the 50 Shades of Grey movie is ‘Boycott the film! Don’t give them any of your money!’ Boycotts of course have a noble history in the pursuit of justice – most notably the Montgomery Bus Boycott of 1955. And obviously by not giving money to an unjust cause, consumers can vote with their dollars in a very tractable and obvious way. And yet when it came to the Super Bowl, though the NFL has had major problems in the past year with regard to an ostensible outbreak of domestic abuse cases in the form of Ray Rice and similar, there wasn’t a trending hashtag about not watching it out of protest. People seemed happy to watch the Super Bowl and its brief acknowledgement of the trend of increased domestic violence as a result of the outcome of the game. The NFL threw us a bone and all was forgiven.

The Grammys were this past weekend and among the musical luminaries was Chris Brown, who is most notorious for his physical abuse of Rihanna. He was there, taking selfies, showing off his look, and generally enjoying the event unmolested by protestors or worries that his career would be affected by his crimes. In that same vein, Woody Allen, alleged sexual abuser, remains at large, making movies, walking red carpets, etc. These men, who have been either been proven to be guilty or otherwise don’t look completely innocent, are not targets of Internet activism against domestic abuse. Not in the same way 50 Shades of Grey is.

There’s no doubt in my mind that the 50 Shades of Grey movie does show abusive behavior, namely in the controlling way in which the eponymous Christian Grey manhandles Anastasia non-consensually and generally takes over all aspects of her life. The creators/producers of the book actually admitted it is abuse explicitly:

My question is why this movie and why now? The books have illustrated, possibly in greater detail, the violence carried out in the movie and they have been on library bookshelves and available on Kindle for years now. These books have been titillating a nation of sexually awakened women without protest or issue. The main argument against the series, of late, has been its terrible writing. But that’s not boycott-worthy.

Reviews of the movie have included quotations and thorough analyses of problematic scenes in which it is obvious that the relationship between the two main characters is abusive. Promotion on the other side gushes over the sexiness of the scenes and of Jamie Dornan, the actor who plays Christian Grey. The feminists on my dashboard are keen and opposed to the film in equal measure making it difficult to determine how anti-woman it is.

Regardless, it baffles me that very real cases of abuse and violence against women are so hurriedly excused or forgotten but that the whole of the Internet can have an opinion about a movie, which is inherently a fictional account. Various writers and Twitter megastars have created short, pithy lines like ‘Shelters and Graveyards of full of women who met their Christian Grey,’ polarizing the conversation about the movie to an ‘you’re either with us or against us’ situation. This cuts out all room for discussion or even movement; it becomes dogmatic that you should not see this movie if you count yourself a feminist.

This movie remains problematic if and only if it gives rise to violence. But most of the articles speculating on the response to 50 Shades do not talk about abuse against women; they instead focus on the rise in sales of BDSM toys and the spike in 911 calls the Fire Department will get to unhook wayward clasps and couples. Unlike the Super Bowl, which has been studied and found to yield higher frequencies in domestic violence, 50 Shades of Grey’s aftermath looks harmless.

Boycotting this movie is not the way to effect substantial change in the tide of domestic abuse. This movie is largely targeted at women, with spillover into men who might be dragged along on Valentines Day. Showing them abusive behavior dressed up as a romance may be harmful because they could possibly internalize the lessons of the movie. But, with 80-90% of domestic violence aggressors being men, it makes more sense to target men directly in anti-abuse campaigns. The Super Bowl tried to do it with their commercial depicting a woman’s coded 911 call when she’s in danger. The problem is the presentation of violence from the woman’s perspective does not force men to see themselves at fault. They instead sympathize with the woman (possibly) but do not relate to the cause of the violence explicitly. The Grammys also attempted to highlight domestic violence concerns but Katy Perry’s speech about was frustrated and voided by Chris Brown’s conspicuous presence. There is no point discussing domestic abuse without doling out the appropriate punishments to those who perpetrate it.

The takeaway is not that you should go and watch 50 Shades of Grey; it remains a movie that glamorizes abuse, and many of the people who have gone to watch it for entertainment have come out of it shaken and questioning rape culture in our society. Rather the message is that we should damn completely all instances of abuse wherever they pop up and especially if they occur in highly popular events that men tune in for.

Obamerica: Why Not Talking About Race Won’t Do Anything About Racism

I was showing my mom the SNL sketch from last February – the one where the only three black students in a high school class stand up to recite a fell-good, white-savior-esque rap (á la Freedom Writers and the ilk) about inspiring black figures like MLK and Harriet Tubman.  They list ’28 Reasons to Hug a Black Guy Today’ with 1 being ‘we deserve a chance’ and 2-28 are slavery.

I laughed hard and obviously before turning to my mother to make sure she was enjoying it.  She looked it over without much expression before saying, ‘These people are always looking for an apology.  Why haven’t they moved on yet?’

This stopped me in my tracks and my mouth was probably still hanging open from my last laugh.  I tried to launch into a discussion of race-based oppression in the US, how Jim Crowe was definitely still a thing, and how black people generally lack the ability to overcome the history of slavery in a concrete and substantial way.  But mostly I just sputtered.

I realized at this point that though I had prepared all my counter-arguments to racists and the people who just don’t get it, faced with an actual person and someone so close to me undoing all my race theory with two sentences made me clam up.  Somehow I still cannot fathom that there are people who don’t believe that racism is alive and well in the US.

Before I went to bed last night, the Twitter-sphere was awake with the sound of injustice – 3 college Muslim students were shot execution-style by a white gunman. Tweeters were bemoaning the fact that major news outlets hadn’t reported on it and it seemed as though Twitter was the only source of information.  The obvious issue is that the sudden reversal in victim and villain, with a white man so obviously being in the wrong, made it an impossible story to report on – it would, in fact, reverse the tirades of hate and abuse launched at Muslims and thus wouldn’t pull in middle-America readers.

The truth is we live in a very racial America where being in possession of a black or brown body, in many cases, is punishable by death or at least degrading treatment by law enforcers.  Talking about this, point black, does not make our treatment worse.  In the rare, miraculous case taking to Twitter and creating a social media storm can actually cause justice to be served.  But for the most part it’s a long series of Trayvon Martins, Mike Browns, Eric Gardners, Deah Barakats, Yusor Mohammad and Razan Mohammad Abu-Salhas. At least you know their names.

Therefore talking about race and injustice based on race is doing something for us.  It’s not just a useless argument that comes up at the inevitable young liberal – old conservative Thanksgiving dinner and complimentary family rending.  Swapping microaggressions, creating hashtags on Twitter, and writing satirical skits are all furthering the conversation in some way.  The first step in problem solving is awareness of the issue.  That’s what talking does.  And when we’re sitting next to people who still unshakably believe that we live in ‘post-racial America,’ talking about race becomes vitally important.

Prada and Posturing, in response to Annemarie Strassel’s “Work It! The New Face of Labor in Fashion”

With growing concerns surrounding the effects of unpaid internships and the desperate reality coming to light of underage stars and the influential people who prey on them, the fashion industry has been rising like the boogeyman in newspapers all around the world. And the factory fire that burned through Rana Plaza in Bangladesh last year, claiming the lives of over 1,000, most of who were young women, definitely doesn’t help. The two sets of stories almost seem to mirror each other – young women working and suffering for fashion. Annemarie Strassel in her article “Work It! The New Face of Labor in Fashion” makes this direct comparison. It’s an easy analogy to make but it’s a conflated one.

Strassel’s article illustrates the ways in which the fashion industry exploits its unpaid interns and models, forcing them into a ‘creative underclass.’ Yet focusing on models and unpaid interns directs our opinions solely towards the glitzier side of fashion – that side which is full of people who can afford to work without pay. Factory workers, like those that perished at Rana Plaza, are not on that side of fashion. Neither are those who, due to financial reasons, cannot work unpaid internships. The focus on models and interns furthers the divide between the “haves” and “have nots” in fashion as the “have nots,” namely factory workers and those who cannot afford to do unpaid internships, are completely omitted from the conversation.

In Strassel’s piece, factory workers are brought in as an introductory hook and a clinching ending rather than a substantial part of the conversation around the fashion industry’s laundry list of exploitation. She does not explore the life of the factory worker as she does for models and unpaid interns. Perhaps she does this because a lot has been written already on the subject. But for the comparison to be justified between the two parties there should be some legitimate discussion of factory workers and their story as well. Otherwise they serve only as a wagon dragging the ‘creative underclass’ along.

Both situations are dealing actively with the unjust labor laws maintained by the fashion industry but when compared within one article without much contrast, we begin to look at them like they are one and the same. We forget that class and privilege divide them. If Strassel’s main concern is models and interns inability to organize or otherwise seek justice against the fashion industry, then the comparison to factory workers makes even less sense. Sweatshop laborers, for the most part, are unable to engage in collective action, leading to the abusive and dangerous working conditions that make their workplace a sweatshop. If factory workers are able to organize, it remains incredibly rare and has yet to yield substantial progress towards human rights fulfillment.

Strassel’s article is limited by its Western-centric approach. By focusing, as it does, only on the models and unpaid interns who make up the ‘creative underclass’ it errs on the side of privilege when discussing the faults of the fashion industry. Factory workers and their recent tragedies remain a useful way to tie Strassel’s arguments to a larger story but are generally left out of the discussion and those who aren’t privileged enough to take on unpaid internships are barely even mentioned. The fashion industry’s negative impact span the world over, but leaving out relevant stories directs conversation only to the glitzier, TV side of fashion and ignores a hefty part of the conversation.

Graveyard Shift: Why the 24-hour News Cycle is Destroying Society (really tho)

In today’s news: Kim Kardashian #broketheinternet with her butt (sorry again) and MSNBC brought on leader of the ‘Imperial Wizard of the Traditionalist American Klu Klux Klan’ Frank Ancona to talk Ferguson.  Gonna skip over KK for the KKK, forgive me.

As part of the latest initiative to garner more views, MSNBC news correspondent Chris Hayes invited Ancona to discuss the KKK’s actions in Furguson, Missouri.  Apparently they have been handing out pamphlets denouncing the ‘terrorists’ masquerading as peaceful protestors and inform readers of their rights to use lethal force in self-defense.  The segment, itself, included two other speakers, St. Louis American Columnist Lizz Brown and St. Louis Police Chief Sam Dotson, in addition to Ancona, but the title of the piece was only about the KKK.  The topic at hand, firmly, was what the KKK were doing in Ferguson and definitely not Ferguson itself.

The reason for bringing Ancona on, Hayes later says, is he believes testimony from the leader of the KKK is an accurate reflection of the racist backlash taking over ‘social media’ (that bogeyman of a buzzword) in the wake of Ferguson.  To be sure, open racism has gripped our country and our hashtags post-Ferguson but choosing, arguably, the most racist man in America to confirm this indirectly does not support any further claims made by Hayes or MSNBC.  It is just click-baiting and pandering.

The best moment of the whole interview was when MSNBC news correspondent directly asks Ancona if he believes his actions are making the situation better and safer.  He, of course, says ‘Yes, I do.’  From there, it veers off into a sarcastic jab-fest between the two as Ancona makes claims about private police knowledge and Hayes acts overly-incredulous.

It has become the norm to talk at length about how the twitter-verse has blown up over Ferguson, rather than discussing the actual issues – namely the fact that details of the case are spun into pure fantasy (including autopsy reports, eyewitness accounts, etc.), that Darren Wilson still roams free, that more black men are dying in similar circumstances in the wake of Ferguson as well as in Ferguson.  These are the topics that feed news outlets with a never-ending cornucopia of stories.

The actual inclusion of the KKK in this story works against every other trope of American news reporting.  We don’t put in airtime for terrorists or other political undesirables in foreign lands, why would we in our own? Allowing the ‘Imperial Wizard’ of the Klu Klux Klan to openly discuss the hotbed topic of Ferguson, in which it seems white people are openly wrong about as a rule, merely adds fire to their cross-burnings and does not even shed light on the topic.

So, while MSNBC gets an hour of footage, nothing is resolved, no real reporting has been done, and we’re still mesmerized by Kim Kardashian’s large derrière.

Sterilization and Misdirection: How the Indian Government is Pointing Fingers at Everyone But Itself

Earlier this week it came to light that 12 women died after receiving botched government-sanctioned sterilizations in Chhatisgarh, India.  As the internet’s ire and public opinion weighed down on the actors in this scandal, fingers were pointed and people were blamed.  Everything from the exploitative doctor to his rusty equipment to the drugs he administered were faulted, and rightly so. Yet, the Indian government and the world as a whole have yet to blame the true cause of these deaths – the lack of reproductive justice for women in the developing world.

Though India is a middle-income country, many regions and communities within the subcontinent are continuously overlooked when it comes to government funding.  Rural areas, where eduction and medical care are still not widely available for poor citizens, belie the achievements in development more cosmopolitan areas of the country are enjoying.  Here women are tasked with the double reproductive burden of caring for the family and for their fields.  In addition, testimonials from women in the area, offered through NGOs and documentaries like It’s a Girl! show that reproductive power and choice often lies with men.

When men and their parents are the ones determining whether a woman has children, keeps her children, or is allowed to care for her children, the topic of contraception is not even broached.  Though there are NGOs that pass out leaflets and condoms with their sex education, there are still thousands of women who cannot utilize these resources.  When women do not control their reproductive lives, it is near impossible for them to take control of their futures.  Children keep them home when they could be working and making their own money.  Their autonomy is tied up, crudely speaking, in their tubes.

Within this context, sterilization and permanent control over reproduction can seem desperately appealing despite the high risk of fatality.  Men, in many cases, may even support their wives getting tube litigations as they find themselves unable to afford more children and access to alternative resources is limited or nonexistent.  So, poverty, patriarchy, and desperation come together to create a terrible formula that leave women dead or critically injured.

This whole incident, as many pundits have mentioned, sounds incredibly similar to the forced sterilizations that were carried about against men and boys in the 1970s under Indira Gandhi’s term in office.  Those six million sterilizations, conducted almost exclusively on poor males, were more a demonstration of the power of the Indian government rather than any real attempt at curbing population growth.  Sterilization then and now is an artificial solution to much more pervasive problems.

Dismantling the systems that give rise to the need for sterilization is a lengthy and expensive process that the Indian government does not want to embark on.  Despite the public anger over this situation it is unlikely the Indian government will offer much by way of policy and change.  In a country of 1.5 billion, 12 women and 1 inept doctor are not even a drop in the ocean.

 

New Girl, Old Jokes: Why Primetime Television is Behind the Times

What is it with primetime television and tired sexist humor?  The 90s saw an endless parade of ‘my wife’s cooking is terrible’ jokes, the 2000s were all about women wearing too much makeup and ‘tricking’ men, and last night celebrated male ownership of female bodies.  On Zooey Deschanel’s New Girl, admittedly a television show that has been on its way out for two seasons, one male character had a difficult time dealing with his ex-girlfriend’s future breast reduction plans.  He likened it to grieving over the death of two close friends. Which, of course, is pathetic.

As he cycled through the stages of mourning, Schmidt, played by Max Greenfield, constantly returned to his loss.  He ignored the reasons behind the surgery, namely that CeCe was preventing her genetic disposition towards back problems, in order to center his own feelings of betrayal in the story line.  The overdramatics would be have provided an interesting commentary on the way men have been recently acting about such news as Angelina Jolie opting for a preventative mastectomy if it wasn’t glaringly obvious that the writers don’t want us to see it like that.  For instance, when Coach, another male character, attempts to console Schmidt, he encourages Schmidt to come along to a get-together where he would be surrounded by ‘four new boobs.’  That’s definitely not any giant leap forward for feminism.

There is a glaring issue with the separation of a woman from what are considered her most attractive features.  Besides it being purely objectifying, it can oven detour into violence.  Of late, breast cancer research campaigns have been distributing merchandise that read ‘Save the Tatas’ or ‘Save Third Base.’  Basically, what they are saying, is it is not worth saving the woman but rather her breasts and the pleasure they bring men.

I am beyond tired of seeing these tropes be brought up again and again.  New Girl is decidedly one of the worst shows for feminism and Schmidt, as a character that often places his desires above CeCe’s, has been known to liken the Indian character’s breasts to brown leather sofa cushions in one of the most bizarre forms of objectification I’ve ever seen.

Surely there must be a direction writers can go in that does not fall back on the usual ‘women be crazy’ jokes.  Various shows (Parks & Rec, 30 Rock, Golden Girls, etc.) have all done it before.  It’s about time we throw out this trash and enter an enlightened age where we don’t have to alienate half the population for ratings.

Equitable Assets: The Anaconda Dichotomy

I was like, this sh*t is boring. – Bell Hooks

We are inhabiting a golden age of feminism.  The discerning internet surfer can read through articles on Jezebel while enjoying a video of Beyoncé twerking to samplings of Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie’s TED talk on women’s rights.  Michelle Obama is the First Lady of Muscle Definition and we love her almost more than her all-powerful husband.  Young women can stand up to Taliban shooters and oppressive dress codes and be lauded in turn.  Women can own their sexuality (in theory) and objectification is no longer a one-way street.

And yet, despite this Susan B. Anthony-may-care take on feminism, many outspoken celebrities seem to have a problem with the idea of Nicki Minaj releasing a music video that is almost entirely centered around the size of her ass.  Bell Hooks, renowned feminist writer and scholar, reportedly said she was bored by the ‘Anaconda’ music video despite it breaking the all-time Vevo viewing record (it should be noted that the previous holder of the record was Miley Cyrus’ ‘Wrecking Ball’ music video where she swung back and forth naked on a wrecking ball).

Yes, maybe the Vevo record is designated only for artists willing to get undressed for viewers, but that does not belie the point that there are still millions if not billions of people tuning in to be captivated by female artists. There has to be something feminist in that.  The truth is that regardless of how many views ‘Anaconda’ has on Youtube, Nicki Minaj currently holds something like 30 individual world records for most albums sold and time spent at the top of the charts.  Just a reminder: albums are auditory not visual so we can probably say that she’s breaking records with her talent not her booty. (Sorry for all the butt talk by the way)

The issue seems to be that dissenting celebrities and scholars do not agree that a female can show that much skin and still be considered a feminist.  The irony of this is obvious – on one side men of yore are saying cover up or you’ll be branded a slut and on the other Annie Lennox is saying cover up or you’ll be branded a slut who takes down the whole feminist movement.  Exit new-new-wave feminism, chased by a bear.

It’s difficult to say, though, that feminism is about accepting everyone, revealing clothes and all, because it can be difficult to differentiate between what’s done for the male gaze and what’s not.  The patriarchy has laid out certain rules for women and it’s worth asking if it’s still restrictive if we enjoy it:  I know many fashionistas and makeup magicians who’ll say that they wear the things they do because they enjoy it.  And I believe them but it also leaves me feeling a bit uncertain.

So when Nicki Minaj struts around in a thong and bra, it’s difficult to assume she does it 100% because she wants to do so entirely for herself.  But then again, even if she wants to be sexy because it invites attention then that’s still for herself, right? Tré confusing.

Then sometimes we gotta look closely at how many ways in the music video Nicki is beating the male gaze to death – she slices a banana viciously, she slaps Drake’s hand away during a lap dance, there are no men in the music video enjoying her (it’s just her and other women seemingly enjoying each other).  Then there’s the lyrics and the fact that she’s appropriating a song that, in its day, was an anthem for large and curvy women everywhere.  It’s all about female sexuality for the sake of females.  At least I think that’s what’s going on.

So while we’re maneuvering the murky waters of male gaze and self-objectification, the question really is can you be sexy for yourself?  I have to think yes otherwise what’s the point, really?

REPRINT: Dye-ing Culture: Color Run, White-washing Holi Since 2012

Originally published here.

Co-opt: (v.) 1. divert to or use in a role different from the usual or original one. 2. adopt (an idea or policy) for one’s own use

The Color Run™ and other similar ideas like Run or Dye™ is a great and fun way to run with your friends, come together as a community, get showered in colored powder and not have to deal with all that annoying culture that would come if you went to a Holi celebration.  There are no prayers for spring or messages of rejuvenation before these runs.  You won’t have to drink chai or try Indian food afterwards.  There is absolutely no way you’ll have to even think about the ancient traditions and culture this brand new craze is derived from.  Come uncultured, leave uncultured, that’s the Color Run, promise.

Doubtless you’ve seen posters advertising for Color Runs™ in your neighborhood – they’re the ones sporting happy white college kids covered in color.  You may have even paused for a second to appreciate the clear fun they’re all having as they enjoy a part of the desi culture.  But honestly, the Color Run™ does absolutely nothing to give credit where it’s due.  And to add insult to injury, they’ve trademarked out tradition.

According to the Color Run™ website, there are only two “simple rules”: 1) Wear white at the starting line and 2) Finish plastered in color.  That would’ve been an original idea if Indians hadn’t been doing it for hundreds, if not thousands of years.

The race ends with something called a “Color Festival” (actually in quotes on the website as well). Sounds an awful lot like a digestible name for Holi. Sorta like how white people call Diwali the “Festival of Lights” even though this is a major over-simplification—I don’t think we just light a whole bunch of candles and call it a night.  Nope, we tell stories from the Hindu Scripture, the Ramayana, share sweets and gifts, say prayers and welcome the New Year.

And at Holi, we don’t simply throw colors in each other’s faces—it’s a place to play with people you love and revel in the vibrancy of spring.  One of our favorite and most colorful holidays is being, pun intended, white-washed.  And it’s like we’ve been completely eradicated from this event as nowhere on the Color Run™ website is there mention of India, Holi, Krishna, or even spring.  Apparently this is a completely organic creation of the Color Run™ head honchos.  And they’re making loads of money from it.

There is a vague understanding that the Color Run™ pays out money to charities selected by their runners.  I cannot find evidence on the website (or the Yelp reviews) as to where exactly the money raised from the runs and their store goes and I have no idea how much of every dollar donated goes back in the Color Run™ administrative workings.  It seems even the runners, if the reviews are anything to go off of, don’t have a clear idea where their donations are going.  So, our culture is being co-opted to turn a profit, but at least you can buy a pair of super cute shorts that say “Color This!” Hai Ram, if our Dadis saw this, they’d be threatening thuppards all around.

I can bemoan the misuse of Holi, the profiting off our culture and the further sexualization of it, but I think worst of all is that it doesn’t give us the chance to share Holi properly.  Personally, I love it when I can bring my non-Desi friends to the annual campus Holi function.  I can show them a part of my heart and an aspect of my identity as a strong Brown woman. The Color Run™ robs me of that chance because now everyone who participates gets a diluted (and completely wrong) version of desi culture. With this Holi knockoff, they lose the culture and the tradition, but they keep our colors.

Malala and Why Westerners Love a Stand-In

Malala Yousafzai finally won the Nobel Peace Prize, a full two years after she got shot in the head by a Taliban gunman for advocating for women’s rights in Pakistan.  I say finally because the Western World has been looking to reward her ever since she survived.  That’s not to say that her cause isn’t just or that she herself is not an amazing person in her own right, but rather that ‘Brand Malala’ has become a full-fledged entity that extends beyond its namesake.

The obsession with Malala is completely understandable if not a little bit extreme (she practically spawned a new comic book heroine in Kamala Khan, the new Miss Marvel).  When the world realized what had happened on that Pakistani school bus two years ago, everyone was quick to jump on the Malala train.  Angelina Jolie reportedly talked at length about her to her own children.  Malala was shipped out for a series of interviews in the UK and the US, even appearing on the Daily Show.  Her act of defiance and her miraculous survival was eclipsed by every other pundit falling over themselves to congratulate her and villainize her attackers. She became the poster child for all the injustices perpetrated by Muslims against women.   She became the reason why we bombed Muslim countries.

It was ironic, though.  Here was one young woman who stood against the systems of power and inequality to improve the lives of her people.  The same people, of course, who had and continue to die in the West’s War on Terrorism.  We showered her in flowers and our adulation, but we didn’t consider where she came from.  There was little to no effort made by Westerners to take up her cause or to do much more than congratulate her until the next hashtag came out.

The West also has a habit, especially in America, of leaving out Malala’s staunch socialist beliefs.  She sent a message to the 32nd Congress of Pakistan to be read out while she recovered from her head injury.  It included the following:

“I am convinced Socialism is the only answer and I urge all comrades to take this struggle to a victorious conclusion. Only this will free us from the chains of bigotry and exploitation.”

It’s easy to feel that Malala, who stood up to the same Taliban we’ve been fighting for years, is the perfect vessel for Western support and celebrity, but to do so would be to erase her completely.  We have to remember  she’s just one girl who survived where millions others have died at Western hands.