Am I right to be annoyed by this? (Cultural appropriation?)

[TheincredibleBookEatingManchot]

Or maybe I don't have the right to be annoyed?

A couple I know who are white British have named their dog a Sanskrit word, which is used in Hinduism and Buddhism. Also the woman wore a bindi at their wedding. Maybe it's just because I don't like this couple anyway so anything they do annoys me but I feel weirdly personally annoyed and kind of bitter about it.

I am ethnically half Indian but culturally completely white British and my Indian family were all Christians (and now atheists) so I have no claim on anything Indian/Hindu/Buddhist; it's not my culture they're appropriating.

But still I kind of feel like if I named my pet a word from an Indian language or started wearing bindis then my Britishness, my belonging in this country would be called into question, but this couple, with their pale skin and light hair are secure in their Britishness, no one's going to start questioning their identity or tell them to go "back" to India, so they get to use things from Indian culture to make themselves look interesting and exotic.

And I don't. But I don't want to. So am I unreasonable to be annoyed at them?

I don't think I've expressed myself very well but not really sure how to make myself clear.

Quite possibly I am unreasonable and this has nothing to do with me.

Nope, I definitely didn’t. Can you please quote or better yet screenshot where I said this please? Perhaps your reading comprehension has let you down.

Apologies. You replied to my reply to a PP and I have been continuing the conversation thinking you were her. My bad.

@donquixotedelamancha I don't think it's OK to assume bad intentions from someone over minor issues. I also don't think it helps address the real problems delineated in the rest of that post

I completely agree - I guess I don't mean the only alternative to good intentions are bad ones - in fact I think I mean it's without intention, and without thought.

I should have put this together with my earlier post to the OP, saying it's possible this couple is the fairly insignificant tip to a bigger emotional iceberg.

Thanks for raising this, though – appreciated.

What's the dogs name?

So if they’re not Buddhists of Hindus then what is their connect to Vedic culture? Is she a prefers or of Vedic mythology or something?

I guess I don't mean the only alternative to good intentions are bad ones - in fact I think I mean it's without intention, and without thought.

Yeah. I think I see it as (perhaps unintentionally) ill motivated. We get loads of this sort of stuff on MN, policing what people wear and say. I don't see any distinction between this and the pear-cluthers who don't like people with tattoos or people who say 'love'.

I think wrapping petty judgmentalism in the language of progressiveness makes it harder to have nuanced conversations on this sort of thing. I also think anyone who uses skin colour to make judgements about people is subscribing to race theory.

I have a hunch that they're a figurehead for a much deeper frustration that you're well within your rights to feel.

Thanks for your posts, @Ladybee28. I think you might be right about this.

YNBU to find this annoying for the reasons you have described. But I guess they still have every right to wear what they want and call their dog what they like. I would think of these decisions more as clumsy choices than cultural appropriation.

Yabu about the name of the dog- lots of names don't have British routes
Yanbu about wearing a bindi to her wedding

I know a white British couple who gave their son a Muslim name in honour of a Muslim friend. He got fed up explaining that he wasn't a Muslim and why he had a Muslim name, at least the dogs won't get that.

was it an indian wedding she was going to? Maybe she was trying to fit in? Misjudged maybe, but perhaps her intentions were good?

YABU. Esp about the dog. Are you always professionally offended?

My dog is named after a cat. Should he be offended, or should cats?

More seriously, you know already that these people annoy you, so just avoid knowing about what they do as much as you can. I sympathise with anyone who is on the receiving end of the "go home" nastiness though, that can be really intimidating. I've had it a few times in Scotland because I am (gasp!) a Sassenach, but also in England because my accent sometimes sounds Scottish. I officially can't bloody well win!

wouldn't say the culture where I grew up is the same as the culture in Newcastle or London

Neither would I, but that doesn't mean that there isn't a white British culture. A culture can have different nuances, sections and so on. NI has a Northern Irish culture, some is Protestant, some is Catholic, in Wales a white British culture has some Welsh and some English speaking people.

It's not a case of having to all be identical because of having the same umbrella culture.

"no religious significance unlike the Sanskrit word."

Just give it a rest. You are just annoyed for something that doesn't concern you. You're not even Hindu!

This isn't addressed at anyone in particular, but if you believe a certain type of person wearing certain things/eating certain foods etc is cultural appropriation and therefore is bad, does that mean you think nobody white English should ever say, wear a kilt or eat jerk chicken, etc? And if so, how are we as a community ever supposed to integrate if we can't share and take on aspects of each others lives?

Also, isn't the reason (and it is wrong of course and this doesn't make it ok, but I think it's the main reason) that certain things get mocked because they're "other" to the dominant culture?

So the mean people of the dominant culture will mock and abuse and so on, and that is terrible, but they do it because whatever the thing is, is unknown to them, it's "other". And then you'll have the nice people trying to be thoughtful who might offer a culturally sensitive food choice at their dinner party when their new neighbours move in, but then mostly you'll have the inbetweeny people who don't pay that much attention but as more people catch on to the new stuff the inbetweeny people (like the ones who saw Gwen Stefani wearing a bindi) start doing it and gradually it stops being seen as "other" and therefore the mean people stop mocking it because it's not new and scary and unknown anymore?

I've not said that very well, and it would be great if the bullying, abusive types could just be more accepting, but humans seem to be pretty tribal as a rule and it takes time for change to be accepted. If we say, no you can't do this because I get laughed at for it and you won't and you don't understand what it means and so on.. aren't we stopping integration taking place or something?

@VirtualHamster , I can sort of see what your DH means, but I am probably too old and too relaxed to get upset about it. I do think it makes you a bit of an idiot if you randomly use letter from my (or any foreign) language which you can’t pronounce , but it doesn’t offend me if that makes sense?

You're not even Hindu!

I'm not gay but I can see when someone's being homophobic
I've made it clear I don't agree with OP but you can't say she's not allowed to be upset by something that isn't directly aimed at her.

@Bluebooby has it right.

how do you know they aren't practicing Hindu? it is the world's 3rd largest religion.

@Sparklesocks

You did indeed say that suits are not specific to one culture and now that is quite right, however @donquixotedelamancha is correct in that, they did derive from British culture many years ago.

The very fact that they aren’t specific to a particular culture (anymore) goes to show how different cultures adopted it to the point that a suit is now pretty universal attire.

OP I think YABU. Seems that the couple are just adopting elements of a particular culture that they like. This has happened for thousands of years....

Why would you wear a bindi if you are going to an Indian wedding

Sari yes maybe but a bindi it’s not going to make you blend in or appear more accepting to a different culture- not sure anyone would give that a second thought if you are accepting or not - I think this is the crux of cultural appreciation at times a show that you are accepting/understanding/admiring of a different culture it can come across as very patronizing and at times crass and sometimes insulting when you haven’t bothered to do your homework

I wouldn’t wear a crucifix to a catholic wedding why would I

Dropping in to say that I think bindhis are beautiful, and I'd love to wear them, but feel that I can't as a white Welshwoman, so I don't. I'm just being honest.

You love a curry and that’s great but I’m guessing you don’t get spat at in the street for “stinking of curry”. If you did and you then saw people who were part of the same group as your attackers ALSO having a curry and posting photos of it on social media in order to look 'exotic', I imagine you'd be pretty pissed off, too. I would be.

So here you are lumping all white people (or non-Indians?) with the “same group” as your attackers. Oh dear.

What is the answer then - shut down all the curry houses in Great Britain? Only allow Indian people to buy curry?
For gods sake.

@EnthusiasmIsDisturbed you realise attending an Indian wedding doesn't automatically make it religious, don't you?

You've compared an Indian wedding and a Catholic wedding...

Maybe she just like it...