A California yoga studio is receiving a less-than-fabulous reaction to its “ghetto fabulous”-themed class.
Power of Your Om Yoga, located in Santa Barbara, hosted a “Namaste with Attitude” class in the end of August. The class featured rap and hip-hop music — including some with explicit lyrics — from artists such as Coolio, Warren G, Snoop Dogg, Nate Dogg and Eminem, according to the studio’s calendar.
“Please come dressed in your favorite ghetto fabulous outfit, snap-back caps, corn rows, heavy lip liner or whatever you can dream up,” an ad for the class read.
The studio posted the ad on its Facebook page with the description “It ain’t no fun, if the homies can’t have none,” a reference to a song from Snoop Dogg (now know as Snoop Lion). The ad also provided a link to WikiHow on “How to be Ghetto Fabulous.”
People began leaving comments on studio’s Facebook page prior to the event, denouncing it as “racist.”
“Please cancel this racist event,” one person wrote.
In response to the criticism, Adrienne Hengels, the studio’s founder, changed the name of the class.
“We changed this to Hip Hop Yoga from Ghetto Fabulous as we didn’t mean for it to be offensive,” she posted on Facebook.
But after the class took place, angry comments continued to pile up.
“This is appaling [sic] and a blatant example of racism,” one commenter wrote. “I’m saddened by your amusement and lack of awareness.”
“Ladies of Power of Om: what is happening here on your Facebook page is karma,” another person said. “Lots of it. Your racism is showing right through your see-through Lulemon [sic] yoga pants.”
Photos from the class posted to Facebook show about 50 men and women with bandanas wrapped around their heads throwing up fake gang signs.
Hengels once again apologized after the class was over.
“My life has been full of good and bad choices,” she wrote. “Having a yoga class to rap music was meant to be fun and not a mistake but making it ghetto fabulous was a bad decision really insulting and I am deeply sorry.”
This message was also posted to the Power of Your Om Facebook page:
“I apologize for the Namaste with Attitude Class that was held at Power of Your Om in Santa Barbara on August 28th. I should have realized encouraging people to dress up as “ghetto fabulous” is a horrible way to lift and unite a yoga community and the greater world as whole. Please forgive me for this, I should have thought it through. To make up for my error in judgement, I have reached out to a teacher of social justice at a university in L.A. to discuss how I can improve as a human being, teacher and business owner around topics of inclusion, race and differences among us.:
(h/t The New York Daily News)
