Rant.
I'm pretty pissed off and annoyed today. I've been having a debate with someone; called her out on using Hindu Mantras in homage to a fictional goddess/Abrahamic succubus (in Abrahamic religions she is a succubus, in a series of novels she is a goddess to a certain culture, hence the use of *fictional*). You guys know know I dislike labeling things as cultural misappropriation because I think there is a fine line between that and cultural exchange (and I like cultural exchange, and cultural change...I think it's good for us in many ways), but this is just BLATANT cultural/religious misappropriation and white imperial privilege. I called her on that (extremely respectfully, I even mentioned that I would and have debated Hindus who claim that the Jewish Shiva is in tribute to the Hindu god Shiva), and she called me disrespectful for assuming that she is ignorant of Hinduism because she knows more than most Westerners because she traveled Asia. What the frak? Who cares about her travels? I never said anything about her specifically, just what she and others in the conversation (this was on facebook under an authors status update) were saying. But oh whoopdie doo, she's traveled Asia so I'm sure she knows ohhhh soooo much. Traveling Asia doesn't make her an expert, and it certainly doesn't make her an authority on what is or isn't offensive/cultural misappropriation. If she didn't mean it in that way, that's fine, she could have just said that it wasn't her intention but her attempt to portray herself as some sort of expert because she "traveled" Asia is having the opposite effect. UGH.