I know it can be tempting to make fun of people who abuse the (sex | cis | hetero | race | class)-ist terminology, but I do agree there is something to be said of the topic your facebook friend is complaining about here. Let me share you a story.

In undergrad, I lived in a massively shared housing organization. In Berkeley. It was one of the hippiest of the hippie strongholds. I was surrounded by naked yoga on the roof, group meditation sessions, and friends who spent their weekends at the local Thai Buddhist temple. Mostly harmless stuff, as long as you didn't mind the bare flesh. A lot of college students exploring themselves and finding who they wanted to be.

But once a year, we had a celebration. A party, meant as a spiritual experience, where members were led from room to room, taking substances and seeing "life" as told from a script of settings. From birth, to your first job, to your first rave, to your parents catching you with drugs, to death. I helped with the retirement home, where I'd let my guests have a moment of quiet while I cheated at scrabble.

Trouble was, the event was conceived about a decade ago after a wave of students were kicked out of another house for noise complaints and a death involving a four-story house, a zip line, and the concrete surface next to a pool. Some off the events were, to your present storyteller, perhaps in... poor taste. In the kitchen, you were "mixed" into pizza dough while a man yelled at you in a poor Italian accent. In heaven, you were lathered in lotion, while David Bowie sang to you. And pre-birth, the Guru handed you a baked treat infused with weed butter.

One member of the house, who spent much of his childhood in India, took offense to a white person taking on the name of a spirtual leader from a culture they did not understand, and using it as a core element of a college rager. He brought up the fact that most people didn't understand what "guru" meant, its importance in the context of sacred traditions, its differences across Buddhism, Hinduism, and Sikhism, nor the clash between "heaven", eastern religions, and a party that ended with Superstar and Cbat blasting at full volume while a bunch of college students danced naked, drunk, high, and covered in chocolate. He was ignored, brushed aside, and told not to spoil the fun. All this from a house that lauded itself on acceptance of traditions from all over the world. At one of the most liberal institutions in America.

From similar groups of people, there were parties involving: a Japanese space wedding and Cinco de Mayo beer fest. Both were received as an insult by people from Japanese and Mexican cultures, but both were also accepted as okay by the dominant white cultures of the house. All three were alienating to anyone from those respective cultures, but justified because "the parties weren't actually meant to make fun of them."

I can see why the individuals putting on these events might not see their actions as racist or xenophobic. Most college / American events take some pleasure out of bastardizing some tradition in the name of fun or capitalism. But there's a lot to be said about peoples' willingness to continue these parties even after being told by minorities that they were insulting.

You see a lot of similar stuff in the fetishization of eastern religions among college youth: embracing and appropriating cultural elements without an understanding of where they come from. I've seen white yoga instructors give lectures on Buddhism (not bothering to specify which branch, omitting all mention of Jainism, and emphasizing the elements of mysticism) to rooms full of only white participants. Then said participants repeat the few words they remember from the session afterwards, feeling a bit more spiritual and enlightened, but still ignorant of the tenants of those religions and regions.

To me, it comes across as deliberate ignorance and deliberate white-washing of foreign cultures. When local: stupid and alienating. When widespread: dehumanizing and, fuck-it, I'll use the word: oppressive. Suddenly, the religion of East Asia becomes "Buddhism", and all other sects, religions, people, languages, and cultures become merged together under the one banner and forgotten.