Understanding Cultural Appropriation

Cultural appropriation has become so widely engrained in modern spiritual culture, it’s often blind to white people. To a white person, teaching yoga, singing mantras, calling upon goddesses and deities of other cultures is often seen as the norm.

Layla Saad defines cultural appropriation as a modern type of colonization that involves taking cultural practices, spiritual traditions and other cultural elements for one’s own use, sometimes for commercial purposes. It happens when there is an imbalance of power and privilege - a dominant or privileged culture appropriates from a non dominant or marginalized culture.

In my last post, Understanding White Privilege I shared about white people’s unconscious tendency to “Take” without asking. This has played out widely in cultural appropriation.

Last year a friend of mine (a person of color) brought up the topic of cultural appropriation, specifically about ways I had been participating in it.

I began to look at my life and see how much of my work involved cultural appropriation:

• Teaching yoga 

• Profiting from teaching yoga 

• Singing Sanskrit mantras 

• Calling upon goddesses and deities from an ancestral lineage other than my own

• Teaching about goddesses and deities from outside my ancestral lineage 

• Leading cacao ceremonies

• Profiting from leading cacao ceremonies 

• Profiting at all from sharing rituals and traditions from cultures other than my own 

When a POC (Person of Color) sees a white person doing these things, it can cause harm.

It can be hard to understand at first from a white person’s perspective because these acts are so deeply pervasive in our spiritual communities.

Why have these practices from other cultures become so prevalent in white communities? I understand that many people from European descent have lost touch with their own ancestral rituals and spiritual practices. So much of the magic and traditions of Northern European cultures were lost when ancient libraries were burned and the patriarchy repressed women from practicing rituals that were passed down through their lineage.

Over the last few decades, as more white people have been “waking up” spiritually and looking for deeper meaning in life, they have found deep solace in practices like yoga, cacao, and reclaiming a personal connection to the Goddess.

Which, for some traditions, have been encouraged by spiritual teachers from the Indian lineage. (I think of teachers like Paramhansa Yogananda or Amma selflessly bringing the teachings of yoga, meditation, and Indian philosophy to the West).

But, it is interesting to look at how yoga has become so commodified in the West, with many white teachers earning hundreds of thousands of dollars from sharing these teachings.

When I began to look at my relationship and participation in cultural appropriation, I thought about how:

Not one of the white teachers I had learned from had ever brought up the topic of cultural appropriation, or how to have a conversation about cultural appropriation when a POC approached me about these practices.

I had to do some deep digging in books to even find any mention of cultural appropriation when it came to Priestess traditions and working with Goddesses of other cultures.  I finally did in this book by Ruth Barrett.

Ruth speaks of white people’s expectation to call upon multicultural Goddesses in ritual:

Many women of European descent don’t think twice about invoking goddesses outside their own culture. They don’t stop to consider issues around cultural appropriation. This lack of perspective comes from a position of privilege, however unconscious it may be. Some women seem to have the attitude that they have an inherent right to invoke any goddess from any tradition, lift Her entirely out of Her cultural, ethnic or religious context and ask Her to serve their purposes.

So how can we do better?

Barrett goes on to share:

…Women can learn to be respectful guests around goddesses of cultures other than their own. Just as it is critical for all people to cultivate an awareness of multiculturalism, it is equally important to understand the diversity of female deities of other cultures. There is, however, a line between being a respectful guest who acknowledges other goddess forms and attempting to take over your hostess’s home and asking her to serve you.

Barrett invites us to respectfully form relationships with these Goddesses, to first work with and explore goddesses within our own culture and ethnic heritage, and when we are drawn to Goddesses from other cultures, to be willing to travel to study with teachers of that lineage if it is a living tradition, and if not, to study and learn as much as we can to relate to that Goddess appropriately.

This is an invitation for deep inquiry for people within white spiritual communities.

I can’t say I have all the answers, and I am finding my way within all of this, knowing how deeply the practices of yoga have touched my life, and also feeling called to speak up about the oppression of POC for hundreds of years in our country.

When I brought this topic to one of my mentors a few months ago, I appreciated her response: Cultural appropriation is real and it's happening. Cultural appreciation with deep, true study and genuine growth must lead the way. 

What We Can Do:

• Approach spiritual practices from cultures other than our own with awareness and deep appreciation 

• Educate ourselves about racial inequality and cultural appropriation to have meaningful conversations without getting defensive or thrown off guard

• Pay Black, Indigenous People of Color to learn directly from them

• Actively donate to causes of cultures you are most drawn to or teach about

• Make a point to travel to the origin of these practices and where you can, study with BIPOC and directly with lineage holders 

• Teach your students about cultural appropriation if you train people in spiritual traditions or yoga

• Connect more deeply with your own ancestry and see if you can discover rituals from your lineage

• Engage your teachers in conversation about this topic

• Be in your own inquiry about how to best move forward with sharing or profiting from teachings of cultures other than your own

I know this is a sensitive topic and I honor you for being here, reading this, and being willing to learn and better serve our communities.

We are being called to deepen in study, reverence, and humility to dismantle the systems that have caused oppression for far too long.

With love,
Meredith

Note: I want to emphasize how important it is at this time to learn directly from People of Color (and pay them) as they are the ones who have been living at the effects of systemic racism and oppression their whole lives. This article shares my perspective as a white person, and I encourage my readers to study, pay and learn directly from BIPOC on these topics. I’ve included resources and links below.

Resources For Further Study:

Holistic Resistance - Anti-racism workshops, trainings, coaching, and singing circles

Layla F. Saad - Me and White Supremacy book and workshops

Michelle Johnson - Intersection of Yoga and Social Justice Trainings

Rachel Ricketts - Spiritual Activism Webinars

Lyla June Johnston - Indigenous Rights, Climate Change & Activism

Jedaya Barboza - Divine Feminine Spiritual Guidance & Awakening