notyourkinddear:

fiberandfumes:

lollerization:

I want to do this for my wedding but I’m not sure if that is appropriate or not.

in my personal opinion, I don’t think that it’s too much of a cultural-appropriation-ickyness mainly because (according to my research) there are no direct religious connotations to doing henna, it’s just for the decoration. However, if someone knows otherwise I’d like to know as well!

Cultural appropriation is not limited to religious traditions, but to all cultural traditions that have meaning within a culture. Our traditions are not meant to be taken out of context, used thoughtlessly, or just as a fad or fashion. Also, someone can correct me, but to my understanding the mendhi ritual did have spiritual meaning attached to it within the Hindu tradition (although it is also a significant cultural tradition in some non-Hindu cultures).

The first link for “mehndi cultural appropriation” is Wikipedia, which uses “the use of henna inmehndi as a decoration outside traditional ceremonies” as an illustrative example of what cultural appropriation is.

Here on Tumblr feministlicious has indicated pretty strongly in a previous discussion of this topic that she as an Indian woman finds it culturally appropriative and racist for white people to use mehndi designs, which do have deep religious and cultural significance vis-a-vis Hindu weddings. (Would link to the original post rather than the reblog, but it’s locked.).  Part of not culturally appropriating is listening when someone says “as a person of this culture, this is why this is not okay to do” and I knew I’d seen some discussions of why this is inappropriate.