“Namaste,” a white woman in Lululemon leggings once said to my crowded yoga class, folding her hands as if in prayer. “That’s Sanskrit. It means I honor the way your body moves. Isn’t that beautiful?”
Oof. No. Red flag. Although namaste once translated to I bow to you in Sanskrit, it now connotes something closer to a simple hello. The instructor’s dubious translation not only spreads misinformation but exoticizes a common greeting — presumably to titillate the (mostly white) yoga students and exaggerate the foreign “mystique” of the yoga experience.
Her class is the rule, not the exception. Many yoga classes in the U.S. are colonial spaces. A typical session might involve the routine butchering of Sanskrit phrases and the fetishization of traditional practices and movements, while vaguely “exotic” strings-based instrumental music plays in the background. This curated environment tends to collapse the differences between far-flung traditions; the same studio may include a pastiche of Buddhist statues, Hindu symbols, and Sanskrit chants, flattening the diverse practice into a monolith for white consumption. Most yoga instructors are white women. Tank tops emblazoned with “om” and “namast’ay in bed” abound. The commodification of yoga facilitates exploitation, encouraging studios to reap profits from the appropriation of traditional spiritual practices, without paying or crediting the people who created them. Fundamentally, then, these yoga classes represent colonial, capitalist undertakings that advance at the expense of the very bodies they are built upon.
Aw yes, “the streets.” I am so ashamed to have the same given name as this asshole.
“Black Americans online, some of them are saying I’m voting for Trump now,” Watters said on Friday, “because they too have sometimes felt they’ve been unfairly targeted by the criminal justice system.”
Later, on his own show, Watters repeated that “the mug shot’s turned Trump into a sympathetic character in Black America” — “a martyr” who “represents someone persecuted by the man.”
“The streets are talking about him in a way they’ve never talked about him before,” he added.
Wow, maybe Watters and his co-host creeps at Faux News should really keep digging themselves into a hole. 
That might lead followers of Candace Owens, David Clarke, Silk, and others of their ilk to finally jump ship, too:
Yep. You know, where black people live. “Urban” streets. 
I remember studies from decades ago showing that news reports usually showed black people being interviewed outside, and white people indoors, usually inside their homes. That difference exacerbated the “streets” trope. IIRC, white reporters and film crews were afraid to go inside black homes, and even to ask.
The students showed them what the students wanted by tearing down the banner. So they did their “rebranding” by painting the wall a blank blue. That is not sending a message of unity you asshats
Oops, I meant the other way!
Heh. I was about to ask how you pronounce “banjo”!
Wait… I love awesomesauce! 
Oh no… What about… cool beans?!?
Oh no! Please don’t take my “cool beans!”
From my cold, dead hands…
The show’s response is basically, “Why are people so mad? Don’t they understand we are striving for accuracy?” 
Assholes.
Welp…
