I never intended to respond to Randa
Jarrar's article "Why I Hate White Belly Dancers," but I did. And now I'm going for round two. This time, I want to unravel Jarrar's
whole argument by chipping away at her assumption that white women's "appropriation of the art causes others
harm."
Without that element of harm, her argument falls apart. White belly
dancers (or black or Asian or Latina ones) cause no harm whatsoever to the
people to whom this dance "belongs."
No bodily harm, no economic harm, no social harm. Quite the opposite really. The vast majority of Arab women and men
appreciate non-Arabs learning and mastering their dance. At the very least, they fetishize us, similar
to how some of us exoticize them.
Let's dissect this a little bit. Of course the idea that one woman's
dancing causes another woman physical harm is ridiculous. So let's put that
aside. But how about economic harm? In
order for Jarrar to suggest that the alleged "cultural appropriation"
we're engaging in is economically detrimental to Arab women, it would have to
be true that white women are taking opportunities away from them. This is patently false. Due to a very unfortunate mentality that
demonizes women, women's bodies, and women's independence, not too many Arab
women aspire to become professional dancers (and this mentality has NOTHING to
do with European imperialism. It's much older than that.). The few who do take
up the profession desperately need the money, and are brave and skillful enough
to dodge the social stigma. However, most of them would rather die of starvation than dance for money. It's therefore simply ignorant to state that
white appropriation of the art is "harming" Arab women by taking away
their opportunities. That's like saying illegal immigrants are hurting
Americans by taking away all of the toilet bowl cleaning jobs.
