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So @michaeltracey, have agreed with your perspective on @TulsiGabbard thus far, but disagree strongly with your benign assessment of @KerryHowley's piece in @nymag. Would appreciate your considering why most Hindus will find this problematic @hinduamerican @SuhagAShukla (thread)
One line of attack is that @TulsiGabbard must be assigned an origin myth at all, and if one is assigned—it is rooted in a cult that seeks legitimacy as Hindu. Or that “Indian Americans [are] taken by her professed Hinduism.” This implies a Hinduism test for non-Indians.
If an @TulsiGabbard, who took her oath on the #BhagawadGeeta, is vegetarian & articulates adherence to #KarmaYoga does not need a Hinduism test!
When the West questions white people practicing Vedanta, meditation, yoga and Ayurveda as not truly Hindu, these very practices are delinked from Hinduism. This is how the West appropriates Hindu practices, and @HinduAmerican has been calling this out for years! @SuhagAShukla
Another example of @KerryHowley delegitimizing white Hindus? This line: “...group of Caucasians taken by the ritualistic trappings of India.” Yeah, Hinduism is never exoticized & eroticized as a religion of rituals—move along, nothing philosophical or transcendent there!
Then this: “Butler has always carved legitimacy fo this group among mainstream Hindus...and that he[achieves] this through Tulsi’s relationship w/ @narendramodi.” So, this Butler cult’s secret plan is to run a candidate for President, cozy up to Modi just to be considered Hindu!
And @mtracey, see this: "After a single term, she joined the military, later saying she’d been motivated by 9/11, and deployed in Iraq and Kuwait...But that story may be too neat.Her tours were her first time as an adult out of Hawaii, away from her family & the religious sect."
Imagine that! Tulsi served in the military because she was Islamophobic or wanted to run away from her family or faith! Did we hear such speculation about McCain or Kerry or Bush? @KerryHowley @HinduAmerican
And that Tulsi’s father “carried himself with dickishness.” Quoting a neighborhood kid with his own axe to grind. This passes for journalism? This is what a hit job looks like. @KerryHowley @HinduAmerican (end)
