- Jun 22, 2004
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The PC Police are at it again.
College kids having a tequila party with mini sombreros are creating unsafe spaces for students.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/opin...b46cc4-e185-11e5-9c36-e1902f6b6571_story.html
And then . . .
It came out that the school provided sombreros for a reunion:
College kids having a tequila party with mini sombreros are creating unsafe spaces for students.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/opin...b46cc4-e185-11e5-9c36-e1902f6b6571_story.html
On Saturday, two members of Bowdoin College’s student government will face impeachment proceedings. What heinous transgression did they commit? Theft, plagiarism, sexual assault?
Nope. They attended a party where some guests wore tiny sombreros.
Two weeks ago, some students threw a birthday party for a friend. The email invitation read: “the theme is tequila, so do with that what you may. We’re not saying it’s a fiesta, but we’re also not not saying that .” The invitation — sent by a student of Colombian descent, which may or may not be relevant here — advertised games, music, cups and “other things that are conducive to a fun night.”
Those “other things” included the miniature sombreros, several inches in diameter. And when photos of attendees wearing those mini-sombreros showed up on social media, students and administrators went ballistic.
College administrators sent multiple schoolwide emails notifying the students about an “investigation” into a possible “act of ethnic stereotyping.”
And then . . .
It came out that the school provided sombreros for a reunion:
A Bowdoin alumna read my column today about Bowdoin undergraduates who’ve been disciplined for wearing sombreros, and she decided to email me about last year’s on-campus reunions. She said that the school provided a photo booth replete various hats, mustaches and other props conducive to taking silly celebratory photos.
Guess what was among those items: sombreros!
Not only did Bowdoin provide sombreros, but the school actually posted, on Facebook, pictures of people donning them for the photo booth. Here are a few embedded photos from Bowdoin’s public Facebook page. At least one of them appears to show undergraduates working at a reunion event and wearing the same school-provided sombreros.
So let’s get this straight. If students wear their own sombreros during a whimsical celebration, that’s an act of cultural appropriation so odious that they must be ousted from their dorm, campus social events and student government. But if alumni and students wear sombreros provided by the school during a whimsical celebration, that’s all in good fun, and the images ought to be flaunted on the school’s own Facebook page. Talk about mixed messages.
Again, I’m not taking a position on whether wearing sombreros is “culturally appropriative”/racist or not. As far as I can tell, the social norms on wearing sombreros are pretty ambiguous. But I don’t see how the school can argue that these “tequila party” attendees should have known better than to treat sombreros as silly props if the administration itself didn’t either.