![]() In the fall of 2019, a Russian dancer posted a video of herself on Instagram with dark coloring on her face, and a comment saying she had always wanted to be a Black woman. There have been other kinds of controversies beyond cultural appropriation. Belly dancing unwittingly found itself at the center of a national debate. There was so much ire that Jarrar wrote a follow-up, “I Still Can’t Stand White Belly Dancers,” in which she held firm. In the darker recesses of the internet, Jarrar was called fat, stupid, and racist (and that’s only what people said on public forums). All of them attacked Jarrar’s premise and celebrated the benefits of cultural exchange-Korean tacos, Jews playing Christian music, Yo-Yo Ma, etc. In 2014, cultural appropriation was just starting to become a talking point, and Jarrar’s article became emblematic of much more as responses to it appeared in the Washington Post, the Atlantic and the Los Angeles Times. Soon, several large national publications picked up the story. “Make sure you’re not appropriating someone else’s.” (Though in its full context, this quote may not have been directed to every single white dancer.) By some interpretations, Jarrar was telling all white belly dancers to quit: “Find another form of self-expression,” she writes in the article. It hurt many to hear their life’s passion called racist. Some were angry, some were defensive, others were worried about the ethical implications of their craft. The American belly dancing world reacted quickly. She argued that white dancers were guilty of putting on “Arab Face” as they adopted fantasy (often completely meaningless) Middle Eastern stage names, dressed in exaggerated “Arab”-style clothes-diaphanous fabrics studded with glitter and gold-and paraded her culture onstage as entertainment. ![]() The topic first hit the cultural mainstream in 2014 when the Palestinian-American writer Randa Jarrar published the provocative article “Why I Can’t Stand White Belly Dancers.” Contributing to a series of essays by feminists of color curated by Roxane Gay for Salon, Jarrar did not hold back. Highest on the list is the question of cultural appropriation and whether Americans-particularly white Americans-should perform this Middle Eastern dance form. Spend a little time with any belly dancer and the conversation will eventually turn to controversy. Right now, there is a crisis in American belly dancing in fact, there are several.
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