Cultural Insensitivity

I am honestly appalled by the amount of cultural insensitivity that I see as I watch various classes as part of my internship. This is especially present in the World Literature class which my CT teaches. Specifically, there is a pair of boys who seem to take every opportunity to mock the cultures and people they're reading about. While watching a video about the horrible treatment of widows in India, these boys danced in their seats in a caricature of what they think a Hindu dance would be. The did the same while watching a video about how some families in India kill their children if they're girls because of how expensive girls are to raise in their society (this is due to the dowry they pay the husband's family at marriage even though the practice has been outlawed).

It astounded me that these two boys would be in the classroom, laughing and dancing as such horrific practices were explained to the class.

I see the appropriation of culture every day, it seems. The Native American dreamcatcher has become some great symbol of the hipsters. I've seen girls with tattoos of dreamcatchers who couldn't even explain to me what it was. I see bands using battle headdresses on clothing as part of their merchandise lines. It seems that there is very little awareness of the difference between appropriating somebody else's culture and being respectful of it.

What's even sadder is that most of the perpetrators I see are people who could be labeled as "privileged white upper-middle class." These are the same students who think violence is cool and who can't keep their hands off their phones for more than five minutes. One student even outright admitted that she gets anxious if separated from her phone. I'm going to stop here because I could write whole novels on the problem of cell phones in school.

But for now, I just want to remind people that just because you think something is funny because it's not your culture and you're not used to seeing it as normal, doesn't give you the right to mock it.