A few weeks ago, this guy starts coming to yoga class.
For the purposes of this story, I need to explain that this East Bay yoga studio (which I won’t name) is not a flaunt-your-ripped-abs sort of hot yoga studio. Most of the male students keep their shirts on.
However, the new guy bucks social convention. He’s a shirt-off-all-the-time kind of yogi. I mention this only because it means I can see his tattoo.
The Tattoo
The tattoo resides on the upper center part of his back. It consists of a six-pointed star, which many would recognize as a Star of David, an oft-used symbol of the Jewish faith.
Of course, I have no way of knowing if these two interlocking triangles are intended to be a Star of David, a geometric configuration merely resembling the Star of David or a symbol with a completely different significance. Jews certainly don’t have a trademark on the six-pointed star, and I wouldn’t want to impose my worldview upon someone else’s symbol.
That all being said, he’s got a star on his back that looks like the Star of David, which would otherwise be unremarkable except for the fact that emblazoned within that star is a pair of horns.
Generally speaking, I’d probably give something like this a second thought, but not a third thought. I’ve seen plenty of explicitly racist tattoos. There’s only so much you can get worked up about with this sort of thing. But this guy keeps coming to yoga class, setting up his mat in front of me and taking off his shirt. The tat in question sits a few feet from my face for 90 minutes, which results in a lot of my time spent staring at this guy’s back and contemplating, what the heck is the meaning of a pair of horns in a Star of David?
Horns have long been associated with anti-Semitism. The behorned Jew is a classic, medieval European trope. Anytime someone inscribes a pair of horns on something with Jewish significance, it raises questions.
I spent a while researching if there could be any other interpretation for a horn-embedded six-sided-star symbol. All I found was a bunch of weird occult conspiracy stuff but nothing definitive. Put together, horns combined with a Star of David do not make for an obvious symbol of anything.
I’m going to assume this guy has the best intentions and that it’s probably a well-meaning tattoo. Someone pointed out to me that the horns are probably Taurus horns. For all I know, the star could be a Hindu or a Rasta symbol. He could be a reggae fan who was born in May, who, on a youthful Coors-fueled night, was struck with the notion that this might be a sentiment worth permanently inscribing on his skin. We’ve all been there.
Or maybe it is a totally anti-Semitic tattoo that he got a long time ago when he was all about Jew-hating, but that was before his heart opened from doing a ton of yoga, and now he’s emanating universal love for all beings and keeps the tattoo as a reminder of the person he used to be.
Show Me Your Tat
The next time I see him, I could ask him in a friendly and curious way, “Your tattoo is so interesting! What does it mean?”
I do not have any tattoos, and I’ve always been wary of commenting on someone else’s tattoos because it feels akin to commenting on their body, which generally feels inappropriate. I don’t want to be one of those sleazy “Show me your tat” guys. I’ve seen women have to deal with that, and it’s gross. He’s not a woman, and I’m not hitting on him, but I’m not sure if that makes any difference. Maybe it’s better to default to not commenting on people’s bodies? But given his brazen bare-chestedness, does that make it fair game for discussion? Is that akin to saying that any visible part of his body (or anyone’s body) is a subject for public discussion and scrutiny?
Another thing: the teacher of the class is of an indigenous origin (which I won’t name) and covered in traditional tattoos. People in the class often ask her about them. I think it’s totally rude and intrusive. Those marks are a part of her body. I have no idea how she feels about it.
Action or Inaction?
There are several possible outcomes if I ask the guy about his tattoo.
In the best-case scenario, he might say, “Yeah, that’s my anti-Semitic tattoo. ’Cuz I’m anti-Semitic.” And then I would know. And then I’d have full license to process how I feel about explicitly anti-Semitic tattoos in yoga class. Perhaps I could parlay this into a tool toward a deeper yogic practice — a test of equanimity and non-judgeyness? I don’t know. But at this point, I can’t even let myself go there because I’m still stuck on the meaning of the thing. I don’t want to non-judge until I know what I’m non-judging.
Or maybe he has no idea that his tattoo has anti-Semitic overtones, and he’ll be devastated to find out and will be sent into a shame spiral. And maybe he’ll stop coming to yoga class, and that’s not gonna help anyone.
Or maybe he’ll realize that this is why he’s had such a challenge dating all these years, because anytime anyone sees his ambiguously themed tattoo, they’re like, “Hmmm…not sure what this tattoo means, but I don’t want to stick around to find out, because one way or another, it’s a bad scene.”
Or maybe he’ll read this article. He’ll recognize me from yoga class. But I won’t know that he knows that I wrote an article about him. He’ll show up to class next month with a new tattoo blacking out the old one. And I can always wonder if I had had anything to do with it.
But probably he won’t see this.
Brownshirt or No Shirt
I know I’m supposed to go to y0ga to clear my head, but what can ya do? The truth is, we all have hundreds of interactions of this sort every day. Usually, we’re too caught up in the flow and the fray to give these issues much thought beyond fleeting moments of aggravation. If we were to give it too much thought, how would we function? We’re usually not frozen in place for 90 minutes, sans phone, with the headspace to contemplate the complexity of one tattoo.
In and of itself, my yoga-class quandary is but a drop in the micro- and macro-aggression ocean. But then, as I’m writing this, my friend starts sending me pics of Brownshirts marching in Berkeley. (Check out this article for a recap.) As Mother Jones reporter Shane Bauer tweeted, “Militias, alt-right, Nazis, etc., won today in Berkeley.”
Suddenly, a Star of David with horns in it seems that much less innocuous.
Brownshirt or no shirt, I’m equally at a loss. It’s hard enough knowing what, if anything, I should do in my yoga class, let alone at a blatantly fascist circus like this one that just happened in Berkeley. All I can say is, if you’ve read all the way through this, I appreciate your taking the time to think this through with me.
