The subject of cultural appropriation is one that has gotten much attention since Miley Cyrus' performance at the VMAs. Articles have circulated about the racial implications of Miley's appropriation of twerking, as well as her usage of Black women as props. Her performance showcased a clear contrast between her Black backup dancers, and her own place as a white woman. However, I recently read a very interesting article that also deals with cultural appropriation, but this time, the perpetrator is a woman of color, Selena Gomez.

This article draws attention to Selena Gomez's use of parts of South Asian culture in her new song, "Come and Get It." Not only does Selena incorporate traditional sounding Indian music into the song, but she also chooses to wear a bindi and other traditional Indian clothing, while performing hypersexualized traditional Indian dance. The author of this article points out that Selena is not the first "fair-skinned celebrity" to appropriate the bindi, and argues that the problem with such actions is that they allow Western celebrities to profit from the use of something that is stigmatized when used by dark-skinned Indian people.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n-D1EB74Ckg

The issues brought up by the author of this article are therefore very relevant to our last class discussion, and to the readings by Omi And Winant. In our last class, we discussed the implications of US Census categories that fail to acknowledge Latinos as members of a separate racial category, but rather seek to separate them into the pre-existing categories "Black" and "white." Omi and Winant argued that race is an ever-evolving concept that is rooted in sociohistorical contexts, and they describe the speculations of different scholars who believe that racial distinctions will soon boil down to "Black" and "not Black." These concepts are interesting in the context of this article, because Selena Gomez is a Latina woman, who is benefiting from the appropriation of another culture. Her actions bring to mind the term "honorary whites," which has been used to describe the place of Latinos in the US, especially those that, like Selena, are fair-skinned. Selena's ability to wear a bindi as a fashion statement demonstrates an instance in which lighter skinned women of color are granted certain privileges denied to those with darker skin.


http://feminspire.com/selena-gomez-what-are-you-doing/