Is Katy Perry Racist?

On Sunday November 24th, millions of people tuned in to the American Music Awards to watch one of the biggest nights in the music industry. Katy Perry opened the show with a geisha themed performance, which immediately received criticism from the Japanese community calling her racist. Her performance consisted of paper fans, japanese cherry blossoms, Japanese garden sets, and Perry and her backup dancers dressed as traditional Geishas. According to Psychology Today's Ravi Chandra, many Asian Americans were offended by the performance because they've "watched [their] cultures misappropriated and commodified time after time.  Frankly, many of [them] feel used as props to glorify White artists.” The artist was also accused  being a racist because she was essentially sexualizing the Japanese female figure. Although Perry's intentions were harmless, many people called her ignorant and offensive. Her performance was also compared to Selena Gomez's which was recently criticized for being offensive to the Indian culture and sexualized the traditional Indian female figure. Maybe this should serve as a warning to other musical artist that it is important to be careful when stepping into the territory of recreating other cultures because there is a thin line between appreciating the culture and being racist.