TheincredibleBookEatingManchot ·
08/01/2020 17:46
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.