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HelpRe: We Need to Talk About India.
in reply to a message by erb816
It's absolutely fine with no exceptions.
If you feel uncomfortable using it, don't use it. I could understand why one might feel comfortable or uncomfortable. If you're reality-checking a sense of moral anxiety or judgment ... I've got none. Given your stated concerns, I think that interest in the opinions of "those with South Asian ancestry" looks like seeking to work up beliefs about collective opinions (an oxymoron), in order to help justify that there are more and less moral ways for supposedly powerful "white people" to name babies. As if white identity means that when you name a baby girl something not traditional for "white people," you are "treating" other cultures well or badly and it matters to them? I'm just not seeing that...
I'd project common sense and goodwill onto the humans of India, and tend to presume it's most likely (unless they've been hit with the cultural brainwash of white special powers) that one would think it's funny, if any white people thought they had the power to hurt or offend by naming a child India. People name babies after things they think are worthy of admiration, and they tend to ignorantly romanticize what is foreign to them, and I'd figure a person of any different ethnicity and culture would understand that as well as I can. And also I'd expect they are free of delusions about white importance being Real - let alone existing in the personal names of individual white people, and potentially making them feel their ethnic identity has been offended. By some white person's name!
Cultural appropriation and exploitation happens, but I think naming a kid India ain't it.
- mirfak
If you feel uncomfortable using it, don't use it. I could understand why one might feel comfortable or uncomfortable. If you're reality-checking a sense of moral anxiety or judgment ... I've got none. Given your stated concerns, I think that interest in the opinions of "those with South Asian ancestry" looks like seeking to work up beliefs about collective opinions (an oxymoron), in order to help justify that there are more and less moral ways for supposedly powerful "white people" to name babies. As if white identity means that when you name a baby girl something not traditional for "white people," you are "treating" other cultures well or badly and it matters to them? I'm just not seeing that...
I'd project common sense and goodwill onto the humans of India, and tend to presume it's most likely (unless they've been hit with the cultural brainwash of white special powers) that one would think it's funny, if any white people thought they had the power to hurt or offend by naming a child India. People name babies after things they think are worthy of admiration, and they tend to ignorantly romanticize what is foreign to them, and I'd figure a person of any different ethnicity and culture would understand that as well as I can. And also I'd expect they are free of delusions about white importance being Real - let alone existing in the personal names of individual white people, and potentially making them feel their ethnic identity has been offended. By some white person's name!
Cultural appropriation and exploitation happens, but I think naming a kid India ain't it.
- mirfak
This message was edited 8/19/2022, 4:16 PM
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