Intention versus Impact: A 🧵
Someone steps on your foot by mistake. They didn’t mean to hurt you, but they broke your toe. These things can happen in the course of regular human interaction - they are honest mistakes that don’t have any underlying context or meaning or history.
Someone steps on your foot by mistake. They didn’t mean to hurt you, but they broke your toe. These things can happen in the course of regular human interaction - they are honest mistakes that don’t have any underlying context or meaning or history.
But that’s not what's happening when murtis are used as decorations. If it was, you’d see the iconography of ALL traditions being used by people of all religions AS DECORATION. But you don’t. You don’t see Jesus on the Cross casually used as a decoration in non-Christian homes.
You only see iconography stolen from indigenous traditions used as decorations. Over the centuries, people have been taught that this is okay. Murtis were stolen from India and shipped across the world to keep in museums and be sold to wealthy collectors of the exotic.
Over time they began to appear in “yoga” studios and shops like Pier 1 Imports and Home Goods. Now the middle class person can feel spiritual or just scratch their exotic itch simply by purchasing a readily available trinket and making it a conversation piece in their home.
Oftentimes these decoration murtis - and Hinduism itself - are actively mocked on tv shows or movies. We’ve even seen one used as a murder weapon on a tv show.
There is no reverence, no respect, no sense of the historical violence. It is, at best, exotica.
There is no reverence, no respect, no sense of the historical violence. It is, at best, exotica.
There's nothing innocent about the commodification and consumption of indigenous iconography. Its prevalence masks its hidden meaning.
That’s what I mean when I say Hinduphobia is normalized. Just because we’ve all been conditioned to think it’s benign, that doesn’t mean it is.
That’s what I mean when I say Hinduphobia is normalized. Just because we’ve all been conditioned to think it’s benign, that doesn’t mean it is.
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