5/9 Maira and Said

I am not going to lie; the two articles were very dense in vocabulary thus making it kind of confusing to understand. However, what I got out of both articles is that people shame others due to their culture (ethnocentrism) and label the Orient as underdeveloped and inferior whereas the West is superior. Then, the West uses parts of this culture to turn it into "cool" orientalist trends. Like Professor Maira mentioned, some examples of these trends are bindis, henna, and fashion. Henna was originally used for wedding but it is now a decorative temporary tattoo. I remember when I was in 6th grade and a girl of Indian descent, had henna on her hands and arms. I wondered what it was but I never paid much attention to it and I never really knew the true meaning behind the henna. This made me wonder if older generations are okay with henna being used as decorative. One thing that I reflected on was that these trends start with someone with a high social influence, in this case Madonna. Then I remembered all those trends that were shamed upon but as soon as someone famous did them, then they are okay. Which makes no sense to me! This reading also reminded me of the ethnocentrism in the American education system which is called Neo-colonist rhetoric in this text. I was always taught the dominant narrative and not the counter narrative; In Kindergarten I learned about Christopher Columbus and how he discovered the Americas when in reality, the Americas was already discovered by Zheng He in 1421.  As I was growing up, I remember always watching the Disney movie because I thought she was beautiful and free spirited. At a young age, I thought it made sense and how it wasn’t a bad representation because at the end of the day, Europeans were being the bad guys by taking their gold and their land. Although they portrayed that, I never looked at the Native American side. Now that I think about it, it is mainly all stereotypes and it was not okay to dress her the way they did, in those provocative clothes. That was when I realized how a 12-year-old does not have a Barbie body and although some teenagers wear provocative clothes at a young age due to societal standards, I do not think her tribe would have allowed that since their women were more reserved. I mean, she wasn’t even a Princess according to her tribe, the Europeans imposed their political “norm” and declared monarchy names. This goes to show that ethnocentrism can be shown through education and popular films.