Where to even start

A reader sent us the following facebook conversation.  It's honestly hard to even start with what's wrong with this.  For privacy, we've covered all names, but B is the only Tibetan in the conversation.

What really gets to me here goes back to one of our age-old points: entitlement.  The writer points out how much they've done for Tibetans as if they expect some sort of reward or immunity from responses to their criticisms of Tibetan communities.  Remember, people, if you're doing this do get something, you're doing it for the wrong reasons.

The C responds.  Mass generalizations about tibetans as "childlike and egotistical" followed "Tibetans are in a negative karmic cycle". Well, that's some victim blaming! The whole comment is victim blaming.

But wait guys. That's not all:

A's comment: Threatened?  Come on. The statement was that there would be backlash. Let's be honest, any time anyone writes something critical there is backlash.  And considering A's comments as this post continues, the backlash of her supposed critiques is probably deserved.  C continues with Tibetans now being "Fascist and authoritarian".

Now B, a Tibetan woman based in the west, comes into the conversation, calling C out on his degrading generalizations about the Tibetan community.  She also seems to be very gently asking A to reconsider her critiques for the same reasons.  I want to note the gentleness, because it reminded me of a comment we got from a Tibetan reader a long time ago. The reader mentioned how lots of Tibetans felt pressured to be overly nice and polite to foreign "supporters" and avoid criticizing them.  I can't speak to B's intention here, so I don't know if that's what's going on, but it definitely reminded me of that comment. B Then is forced to point out another major racist pattern: when one, non-white, person does something, the whole group gets blamed.  B goes on to call C out on his ignorant bullshit and self-purported rationality.

Now A joins on the faux-Buddhist, victim blaming bandwagon.  And yes! My bingo card is filling right up! Quoting important Tibetan figures out of context!  I wonder what Jamyang Norbu would say to being referenced like this...

C's apology is even worse.  Like any good fake apology, we get the "Sorry...but" and then goes on to call B's response a "typical Tibetan ethnocentric hyper-defensive response..." but seems to be absolving himself by saying "it could be argued" (Weasel words, anyone?)  And then, no not all tibetans are bad "but what if half"...really?  And this is coming from someone who lives in Tibetan communities and claims to love Tibetans.  I don't even.... Seriously. I'm having trouble with words.

B, the only Tibetan in the conversation I want to emphasize  again brings up the important point that it's not that Tibetans are bad, it's that one Tibetan did something.

C: Fundamentalist fascistic Tibetans?  Man. I have to wonder what was under that "see more" link.

Finally:

C, you are the master of the backhanded compliment. Once again, how Tibetans are "far from great thinkers".  Wow.  So they're jerks, lying assholes, fundamentalist fascists, but they're mostly OK even though they are kind of stupid?  Tell me, C, how is it you hold them in such high regard?  That statement just reeks of self importance.

Seriously. I can't even analyze this. I'm done.

More on the immolations...

The ongoing immolations seem to be bringing the worst out in foreign "supporters." I know we talked about this before, but I am seeing it again. Specifically, I've seen several foreigners on forums like twitter and facebook, demanding that Tibetans not only stop the self immolations but stop showing any respect for the immolators, such as calling them Pawo and Pamo (hero and heroine) or martyr.

I use the word "demanding" for a reason. These aren't requests or advice, but demands. These people will quote lamas such as HH Karmapa completely out of context in order to "prove" that they have the right to demand Tibetans follow their ideas of political activism. In addition, these are almost uniformly people who have few, if any, deep connections within the Tibetan community. Needless to say, not one of them could communicate successfully in Tibetan if they tried. None of them, to my knowledge, had ever set foot in Tibet.

But even if they had, even if they had lived in Tibetan communities for years, spoke fluent Tibetan, had dozens of very close Tibetan friends who were practically family: they would still not have the right to demand Tibetans conform to their ideas of correct activism. How many times does it need to be said? Tibet is a Tibetan issue! Tibetans are the only ones who should decide how to take it forward. We are supporters. Our job is to support.

In a case of violence, such as a bombing killing civilians, outsiders would have the right to object to the violence and stand in defense of the victims. However, in the case of immolations the victims are the perpetrators. These young men and women have decided to take their own lives in a form of protest that shares a long history across many cultures.

Does that mean outsiders should condone the immolations? Not necessarily. Tibetans are the ones who decide how to take their activism forward. We, as foreigners, can try to be respectful supporters and voice our opinions, but we can make no demands in either direction whether saying "you must do this" or "you must not do this." And everyone, Tibetan or foreigner, has the right to their own opinion. Therefore, it is absolutely okay to choose not to condone the immolations. But the difference is this: If we, as foreign supporters, do not agree with the actions of Tibetans; we must recognize that it is not our country, not our lives and therefore not our choice. As abhorrent as one might find the immolations, and as many do, we are not the ones who need to deal with the Chinese on a daily basis.

So it comes down to this: We can accept that we support Tibetans and their rights to decide their own future for their country and their rights to decide how to achieve that, even if we find a certain tactic distasteful, or we can walk away and give up our self declared, innacurate title of "supporter".

If you truly believe that your right to object is more important than the Tibetan people's right to self determination, whether for their country as a whole or even just in terms of deciding how to protest, then you object to Tibetans' rights to decide for themselves. The whole goal is for Tibetans to regain that right to self governance. If you object to that, you have no business here.

On the recent crisis in Ngawa:

Tibet has been in the news a lot lately due to the recent crisis in Ngawa: As of the time of this writing, 8 young men and women had self immolated in protest of the Chinese occupation of Tibet during a span of roughly 2 weeks.

This tragedy has sparked a lot of discussion from many people, including many non-Tibetans. We, here at Overlooking Tibet, wanted to share this article written for the Lhakar Diaries by a young Tibetan in New York: How About Some R-E-S-P-E-C-T? I think this article perfectly articulates the fact that we should hesitate to criticize before walking a mile in someone's shoes. It also breaks down some of the common criticisms of the protests in Tibet, many of which are based on misconceptions, privilege, egocentrism and blatant misunderstandings of what drives the Tibetan cause.

Everyone is entitled to their opinions, but in such a volatile situation we first must strongly and accurately consider the situation of the people who want their voices heard.

Let's Talk About Butts...

Well, this title basically wrote itself. My last REAL post, Let's Talk About Feet, dealt with the appropriation and offensive use of Tibetan religious imagery. Presumably the makers of the shoes were neither Tibetans nor Buddhists, so we can shake that off to a certain extent as ignorance. As as you may have gathered from the post, I was more upset by the responses from the Western Buddhist community 's complete disregard for Tibetan culture and the potential for offense than I was about the actual shoes.

Then today I was visiting a large market in a very large, diverse and liberal city. This supermarket really had everything, including it's own devoted Yoga corner.


All the usuals were there. Clothing, accessories, yoga mats and zafus. Zafus are circular meditation cushions, to provide comfort and support to your bum during long meditations and take some stress off of your knees. These are most widely used for Buddhist meditation in Buddhist centers. In fact, a very large number of those who produce these are Buddhist as are those who market it. Then one of the zafus caught my eye.


Yes. That is a Tibetan Thangka image of White Tara, the female Buddha of compassion and long life, printed on a zafu. Remember all that stuff I wrote about having sacred images below the waist? The makers and marketers of this Zafu are telling us to put a sacred image under our butt. And at $49.99, it's not cheap to do so. Plus, if it's in a mainstream market like this, they must be producing and selling a large number. Since these items are pretty much sold to western Buddhists in America (Tibetan homes and temples do not actually use cushions like this, by and large) it says that a solid number of Americans practicing Buddhist meditation are perfectly happy to shove a sacred image under their butt.

I'm just speechless with this one.

Let's Talk About Feet

Anyone who keeps up on Tibetan or Buddhist news probably saw the news about Keds, (or, as we later found out, Zazzle.com) selling "Tibetan Buddhist Shoes." It was reported on the popular Tibetan news site, Phayul as well as the very popular Buddhist magazine Tricycle's blog site[Editor's Note: Tricycle has changed it's blog site and the comments are no longer visible].

The shoes featured Tibetan flags, mantras, the face of HH Dalai Lama, and even a Thangka of a Buddha, among other designs.




The Tibetan community, and world Buddhist community as a whole, was deeply offended.

Fortunately, Keds acted quickly, not only removing the offending shoes, but also issuing an apology and explaining how the error had occurred. Apparently, although Keds accepts responsibility for their lack of oversight on this issue, the offense had been committed by a partner site, zazzle.com which allows customers to custom design and sell shoes. Keds, however, admirably immediately contacted the site, the shoes were removed, and accepted responsibility for their role and immediately started taking steps to prevent future problems.


What does that have to do with this blog? I'm getting to it, I promise. But first I want to look at why this is so offensive.

In most Asian cultures (and I'm not talking east Asian, I'm talking all of Asia) as well as cultures with a strong Asian influence (for example, many European Muslim countries) the feet are considered dirty. Stepping over things, pointing with the feet, or placing respected objects on or under the feet is a huge no-no.

This can be a bit confusing from a western standpoint, since we don't have that association. I think almost every westerner working with Tibetans (myself included) has nudged someone with their foot, pointed with a foot, stepped over a book, stepped over a sleeping child, or stepped over food during a picnic--something like that--and been greeted with looks of absolute offense and horror. This is one that we all learn the hard way. But while the food/child/book rules are a bit harder to grasp, the religion one is pretty obvious.

Does anyone remember the fiasco a few years back when Nike made a shoe with a design that looked like the Arabic word "Allah" and there were massive protests by Muslims? Or the international threats to boycott the film "Hollywood Buddha" because the poster featured a man sitting on a Buddha head?

In short, people should know by now that putting religious images on a shoe might be offensive, and you probably ought to check with a religious authority before doing so.

So Zazzle.com and shoe designer? That was dumb. Straightforward dumb.

And I'm sure some people thought it was "honoring" Tibetan culture, and to those people, I'd like to direct you to this post from the blog Native Appropriations. Different context, but I think it's one of the best explanations of why you should be careful when wearing another culture's sacred symbols for fashion.

But this blog isn't about the general ignorance of the public towards Tibet and Tibetan culture. In fact, I originally argued that this was not a valid topic for a post.

That is until I saw the comments on the tricycle blog.

I want to break this down as best I can. I don't know 100% which bloggers are Tibetans and which aren't, but I'm going to assume that Tibetan name and Tibetan linguistic writing patterns imply Tibetan. And I'm not going to include my own comment, which I left because I was so pissed when I saw these.

Because this is Tricycle, a Buddhist magazine, I think we can safely assume that all commenter consider themselves to be Buddhist.

Number of comments (minus my own): 27
Number of Tibetan commenters: 7
Number of Non-Tibetan commenters: 9

The Tibetan writers unanimously found the designs terribly offensive.

Of the non Tibetan writers: Two neutral, Two found the designs inappropriate, and the remaining five all thought that everyone should lighten up and shouldn't be offended.

Those remaining five defended the designs by pointing to "transcendence" clinging to "things" and "symbols," "Impermanence" how the "True Buddha is not an image" or how this should be used as a lesson in non-attachment.

Others just said that they thought it was funny or wanted a pair.

So apparently, cultural offenses are anti-Buddhist, because they are clinging to symbols. However, I doubt that one of these writers would walk into a temple wearing a shirt that says "F*ck you" on it, because I'm pretty sure they would recognize that as culturally offensive. And I'm even more sure that they wouldn't spray paint obscenities and upside down crosses on a catholic church in order to make a point about the inherent fallacy of symbols.

Why? Well, they would claim being respectful of others' cultures and beliefs, but then--wait--why aren't we being respectful of Tibetan culture and belief?

The real reason? I'm 99% sure it's because this isn't offensive to White Western culture.

So if it's offensive to westerners, we shouldn't do it. But if its horribly offensive to Tibetans? Well, come on. Just lighten up! It's funny. Anyway, you shouldn't be so attached to symbols. After all, there is no true holiness!

These are people who consider themselves Buddhist, take teachings from Tibetan lamas, should know better, DO know better, but don't care.

Treating monastic robes as party costumes

Native Appropriations, a blog dealing with appropriation of indigenous and especially Native American culture, is reporting on San Francisco's “Bay to Breakers” event:

Bay to Breakers is an annual San Francisco Bay Area tradition, now in its 99th year. Technically it's a 12k race, starting downtown (the bay) and ending at the beach (the breakers). I don't know the exact history, or how it has (d)evolved through the years, but I can tell you it is now one part serious road race, and about 100 parts drunken costumed debauchery.

The big story is that they lost count after taking fifty-some photos of white people covered in feathers and paint and drunkenly war-whooping “playing Indian”. But near the bottom of the article, they add:

Indian costumes were by no means the only form of racist costumes. There were plenty of "Mexicans" in sombreros and mustaches, "Asians" with kimonos and stereotypical rice paddy hats, even some "Tibetan monks" (I have a picture of those):

Notice that we're not just assuming this is drunken costume party behavior; the “nun” in the center of the picture is actually carrying a can of Bud.

Is this a case of well-meaning supporters trying to find a clever way to insert a Free Tibet message in a public event (and screwing it up horribly), or just random party-goers who think they can treat someone else's religion and national struggle as a costume to put on while you party? I'm leaning towards the latter since they don't even get the color or design of the robes right, but with just a picture it's pretty hard to tell.

Even if they were trying to do something good, it's hard for me to tell where the borderline between making a positive statement and doing something offensive gets drawn. Of course they shouldn't be drunk and carrying beer cans, and mixing up the color of their robes (maybe they think TIE-bet is THAI-bet?) but what about other aspects. Would it be okay if these people had really shaved their heads? If they were carrying pictures of Tibetan martyrs? Does whether they have the permission/blessing of a Tibetan community or religious authority change anything?