Celebrity1 min(s) read
Published 17:39 14 Dec 2020 GMT
The Kardashian-Jenner clan are no strangers to accusations of cultural appropriation, and now America's First Family of reality TV have been slammed after their children performed the Māori Haka.
Footage of the dance was posted to Instagram stories and then deleted by Kourtney Kardashian's ex-husband Scott Disick on Sunday, December 13.
The video featured he and Kourtney's daughter Penelope, Kim Kardashian's children Saint and North, and two other children.
The group appeared to have practiced the dance beforehand and stick their tongues out at the end, which is typical of the tribal dance.
According to NewZealand.com, the Haka is traditionally performed to represent "a display of a tribe’s pride, strength and unity" and at no point did Disick acknowledge that it is a ceremonial dance.
Watch the Kardashian children perform the dance in the video below:
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Sharing the video with his 24.4 million followers, Disick wrote: "Tik tok ya don't stop. Ain't got nothing on us."
The dance was composed by Te Rauparaha - a war leader of the Ngāti Toa tribe of the North Island of New Zealand.
While the video has now been deleted from Disick's Instagram page, it was posted long enough for the Kardashians to be slammed across social media for alleged cultural appropriation.
One Twitter user wrote: "Why the f**k are the Kardashian West Disick kids doing a haka on Scott's story? That feels wildly inappropriate?"
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A second wrote: "Māori don’t need to appreciate or be happy with the Kardashian kids doing the haka. White people need to stop telling Māori to 'just be happy people are taking your culture in.' Gurl shut up, it's appropriating culture and the Kardashians are infamous for it.
"No one is bad [sic] at the kids. They probably don't even know of Māori or any other indigenous groups on the Pacific. But there are grown a*s adults sitting around, encouraging, recording and broadcasting this behavior to the world. And then getting applause for 'trying.' [sic]"
However, not everyone was so critical of the family and some jumped to their defense, claiming that they learned the dance correctly, but this did not appease their critics.
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A third Twitter user wrote: "My heritage better not be a damned TikTok dance challenge. I don't care that they’ve learned the real words rather than making up their own, this is sacred. STOP APPROPRIATING CULTURES."
