During Welcome Week, NYU held a “Music Festi-ball” for the class of 2019. When NYU announced that their theme for this year’s Welcome Week was “music festivals,” many were excited. At the same time, some people, myself included, were very skeptical about how this would turn out. Music festivals are notorious for cultural appropriation through the use of Native American headdresses and South Asian bindis. The Coachella Valley Music and Arts Festival is especially infamous for this. In fact, during Coachella this year, many South Asian women posted pictures of themselves in bindis on social media with the hashtags #ReclaimTheBindi and #CoachellaShutdown, in order to fight against the cultural appropriation that occurs at the popular music festival. Thankfully, the staff of this year’s Welcome Week made it a point to ask students not to appropriate other cultures during the Festi-ball. However, it is up to students to choose to be more sensitive about the clothing they take from cultures outside of their own.

Some excuse their culturally appropriative behavior as appreciation for other cultures. If you are using something from another culture purely for aesthetic reasons, your behavior is appropriative because you are belittling the significance of that item in another culture. Appreciation, however, is a bit trickier. It is not enough to recognize which culture an item is from, and its significance; it also has to do with why and how you are using it. For example, if you are invited to participate in a cultural event  such as an Indian wedding, where it is normal to wear bindis,  go ahead. A good example of appreciation versus appropriation is Angelina Jolie wearing a hijab while in the Middle East versus Lady Gaga wearing a burqa with the intent of being controversial. The context under which a person uses something from another culture is very important.

I can only speak from the perspective of a South Asian woman who grew up in America. While growing up, I was discouraged from openly displaying my culture. I, like many South Asian
women, refused to wear things from our culture, like bindis or lenghas, in fear of what others would say. We would be
ridiculed — “dothead” used to be a popular slur against Hindu women— and harassed. Even now, if I go out wearing a bindi, people accuse me of ridiculous things like being a terrorist or refusing to act American, while celebrities like Kylie Jenner are praised for their aesthetic and style when they wear bindis. It is past time for people to stop borrowing from cultures that don’t belong to them. The Welcome Week rules are a good` first step, but the most important change must come from the culture at large.

Opinions expressed on the editorial pages are not necessarily those of WSN, and our publication of opinions is not an endorsement of them.

A version of this article appeared in the Monday, September 14 print edition. Email Devyani Shekhawat  at [email protected].