Me and White Supremacy: Combat Racism, Change the World, and Become a Good Ancestor

by Layla F. Saad

Lastly, cultural appropriation rewrites history with whiteness at the center. So for example, though yoga has its roots in India as a spiritual practice, it is now seen as a predominantly white-centered practice that is focused largely on physical health. When we think of a yoga teacher, we think of a white person. While Native Americans were historically prohibited from practicing their religious practices by laws and government policies, now white New Age spirituality co-opts and financially profits off these practices, sacred tools, ritual plants, and ceremonial items. Black styles of hair have been vilified as being less beautiful (when worn by Black people), but now the predominantly white fashion world, which has historically neglected the care of Black hair, co-opts Black hair styles like braids, cornrows, and Bantu knots, calling them “edgy” and “urban.”