Harem Pants: Yes or No?

I am conflicted about harem pants.

On one hand, I've owned "harem pants" for as long as I've lived. Only, I call them salwars and always wear them with a long tunic called a kameez in a traditional South Asian outfit. As modestly flattering and comfortable as I think they are, I only ever wore them that way as pajamas and thought of bedtime as Hammertime. According to Wikipedia, even Hammer pants take inspiration from "harem pants." Had it been socially acceptable for me to wear salwars without invoking images of genies, belly dancers, and MC Hammer (we'll talk some other time about why Hammer was rocking them) to white people and looking like I was fresh off the boat to brown people (dude, what's wrong with being new here?), I would have totally rocked them. Now that harem pants are trendy, I can do that without worry, right?

Wrong. The thing is, it's socially acceptable for fashionistas and hipsters so everywhere outside of a big city, I will still invoke those same images, especially since I don't want to come off as either a fashionista or a hipster. I regret not wearing salwars in high school, where I knew practically everyone. I don't think it would've come off as a failure to assimilate, as I was afraid it would, but, given my honors class taking bookworm reputation, as an experiment of a quirky, budding intellectual (I flatter myself). These days, people will initially perceive a fashion zombie tendency and/or a failure to assimilate, giving them options to choose from for steering clear of me. Eventually, if they still decide to give me a chance, the quirky (still budding) intellectual will shine through.

But then there's the fact that I think the social acceptability of harem pants is a racist turn of culture, which is sadly often the case when it comes to the appropriation of subaltern peoples' culture. The term invokes a cultural monolith, spanning from the Middle East out to South Asia. The harem, a Turkish social construction, did not exist in India, where the style originates. Therefore, the term implies that the entire region that was once the Islamic empire had a homogenous culture, which was untrue then and remains as greatly untrue today. Even sadder still, people consume racist culture without even realizing it's racist.

By the way, America, please don't wear harem pants if you protest against the lack of women's rights in the Middle East. I know you just want to look worldly and exotic despite your overwhelming whiteness, which means you already look ignorant, but it also looks like you're rubbing your supposed freedom from the harem in the faces of people you fancy being stuck in them.


So, if I, a brown girl who is often a hijabi these days, wears "harem pants," will it challenge or confirm the rampant stereotypes? First of all, I would call them salwars and correct anyone who referred to them otherwise. Maybe I just need a pair with "SALWAR" stamped on the ass. Yes.