Interesting points! I have extremely limited knowledge of Indian cultural symbols and was speaking to cultural mis/appropriation in general, but I'd be interested to know that as well. I think your point about cultural symbols becoming passe is something I hadn't considered. While I don't think it has quite the same…

This guy's gonna be all over it.

This is a fabulous, well thought out and much appreciated argument. I do have to disagree with your take on Muslims and Muhammad. Are they oppressed on a global scale? Yes and no - it depends on the country. But they've also made it clear that depictions of Muhammad offend them. So why be the dick that sets out…

If I remember correctly, Gwen said she started wearing the bindi's due to Tony's mum. who wore them all the time and told her that the pretty/jeweled ones were just fashion accessories and therefore were okay. Oh, and yes Tony's Mom was Indian.

Thank you. In the context of religious beliefs, esp. if a significant number believe it, it's only a balancing force to appropriate to some degree.

Yeah, my brother had this when he was 12. In 1991.

anyone want my opinion? I am Indian, and I don't care. Wear a bindi! Don't wear one! Jump into a fountain while wearing a sari and break out into song while random bystanders dance to perfect choreography!

I've been calling it the "hipster high & tight" simply because I didn't want to call it "hitler youth." It has served me well.

Policing cultural appropriation on an interpersonal level like this ALWAYS requires policing somebody else's ethic identity—and that's just plain gross. "Are his eyes slanty enough to get away with that tattoo?" "Are her features negroid enough to warrant those corn rows?" "She doesn't look brown enough to wear that…

If you asked even the more religious Hindus in India (my grandmother, for example), they will have no objections to white people wearing bindis at Coachella. This is because in India, bindis (especially the kind that you buy in a store and stick on your forehead) have almost zero religious connotation. There are…

A quick search tells me this author grew up in India. In my experience, that really changes how someone will view this issue.

Thank you for this. I tend to get lost in what actually is or is not cultural appropriation, and, as a result, end up nodding my head a lot while I figure it out and try not to step on anyone's toes. I really appreciate your counterpoint on this subject.

I'm Native American and as long as the items being worn are reproductions rather than culturally relevant artifacts, I'm pretty okay with people wearing them.

Let me be very clear with you. I am Indian, I lived in India, and UNLESS THAT BINDI IS RED AND ROUND IT IS NOT AN AFFRONT TO THE CULTURE OR PEOPLE. Deocrative Bindis are not specific to JUST India. They appear in many Asian countries as well.

I appreciate this response a lot. I said in some other comment that I don't think South Asian cultures that use the bindi have a monopoly on the forehead. But I do think it's annoying that people wear bindis as an homage to a rather romantic idea of what Hinduism is as opposed what it really is.

I must say, I have zero reverence for religious symbols. To say it is thousands of years old does not lend it sacrosanct status. Even more so, there is much reason for some to purposefully debase Hinduism, much in the same way that critics of Christianity might invert the cross. Of course, the irony of the inverted…

I don't know if it is worth noting. The issue isn't that a culturally appropriating bindi wearer might hurt someone's feeling, the issue is that it displays an colonialist attitude that native cultures exist to be used as fashion accessories, that native cultures can be exploited for monetary gain that never benefits…