I don’t know if you guys are following the Olympics, but perhaps you’ve heard about the controversy surrounding a Russian ice dancing pair who did a routine based on aboriginal (as in, Australian aboriginals) dance? I am troubled by this, for many reasons.
First is the question of whether this should be considered offensive at all, whether we’re just being too damn sensitive over things that don’t matter. And I think it’s good to examine this, because frequently our overly PC culture objects to things as a matter of course rather than because they’re actually offensive. For the second program, the ice dancers were required to present a routine based on a folk tradition. The Israeli couple danced to “Hava Nagila”; various teams danced to American country music; one of the American teams did a Bollywood routine. So what’s the problem?
E/O 