This trip to India is slowly turning into something awful…

This past weekend we went to Annamalaiyar Temple in India. It was beautiful and you could feel the intense spirituality of this place and you could tell how sacred and special this place was to the people…

However, whitey had to go and trample all over this scared area. First of all, only one of us knew what temple this is and what god was worshiped here. We smelled the offering to Lord Shiva, thereby ruining its worth. We then proceeded into one of the shrines and got to cut ahead of the extremely long line to enter one of the inner rooms. We then proceeded to a different shrine and once again proceeded to cut the people who actually worshiped Lord Shiva and his Wife to enter in a sacred room, in which none of the common people could ever hope to enter. This was considered to be a high honor reserved for us.

This made me feel awful. I did not want special treatment because I am in a study abroad group from America. I do not even practice Hindu. We could feel that many of the people were angry with us and this made my heart hurt. I felt stupid smearing ash onto my for head because it made me feel like a fraud. I felt like I was soiling this place with my privilege…

But of course most of the others didn’t feel this way. We went into the back corner afterwards to meditate, and then to take “selfies.” It was horrifying to watch everyone take pictures of how cool the ash looks on their forehead as they sit in meditation poses to act as if they were apart of the culture. It was disgusting. You don’t go into the ghetto, sag your pants, and speak slang, why would you go to another country and pretend like you are apart of a culture you don’t even understand? Eurocentricism at the max… I just wanted to leave. I wanted to scream at everyone to just stop acting like privileged bitches, but they wouldn’t understand cause they are white.

But it doesn’t end here…

We went to another little ashura(?) of yogi (basically an area of worship for a guru many people followed). One of the professors who asking our guide about how people choose which God to follow wheter Vishnu or Shiva. Our guide followed Vishnu and she was wondering if it was passed down on families like in Christianity. One of the students, was trying to explain to our professor that you can’t really frame this in Christian terms because its not the same concept. Then someone had to say: “Well, explaining it in Christian terms makes it easier for us to understand then you should just do it.” Yep, she just went there. I am so damn tired of this Cultural Appropriation. NO, YOU DO NOT NEED TO APPROPRIATE THE MEANING OF SOMEONE ELSE’S CULTURE BECAUSE YOU ARE TOO STUPID TO UNDERSTAND IT IN ITS OWN TERMS. I am just so tired of this shit. I am tired of these fucking whiteness. You would think coming to India, these people could keep their damn privilege in check but no, it’s disgusting.

However, this is not to say that everyone in my group does this. A majority are respectful and understand privilege and understand the culture in its own terms without trying to twist things. However, I can’t help feeling like this whole trip, is based on second wave feminism, and not transfeminist ideals and it really depresses me, because I thought we were passed this.