The vast majority of people don’t want to offend others and don’t do so deliberately. There will always be a few jerks who do and they will not care about the outcome of this discussion. However, the reason for the recent uproar over these issues is that people are fed up with boundaries that shift like quicksand based on the whims of whomever in any given situation considers themselves to be the least powerful or most historically aggrieved relative to the other players. This is how we end up in a place that becomes untenable and illogical–the kind of world in which behavior is OK one day, and not OK a few months later. It’s a world in which an African American chef is actually accused of being racist toward African Americans for preparing a menu of Martin Luther King’s favorite foods on his holiday. It’s a world where a few months ago a parent posted on this forum that her D at college was telling a story about a trip to Mexico and used the adjective “Mexican” to describe a little boy since that fact about him was important to understanding the story, and was labeled a racist. She was supposed to know “Mexican” is an offensive label. It’s a world where our fellow poster’s Chinese born but Irish bred daughter might one day be thought to be mocking the Irish if she wears St. Patrick’s Day attire because she doesn’t look Irish to someone else. But at the same time, it’s a world where someone who doesn’t genetically belong to a certain race can pretend to be of that race and plenty of people will argue that that’s just fine.
Furthermore, people honestly don’t see themselves how others see them and don’t necessarily know they’re not supposed to do, think, or say something due to some racial or social hierarchy established by someone else. That’s why we need objective standards. As a girl, my parents struggled financially to the extent that I had to wear hand-me-down boy’s clothing to school and couldn’t always go on field trips that cost money. So even though I have often felt deprived and poor, other people get to label me “privileged” and I can’t argue it ain’t so without negative consequences.
That is how I got to women’s and LGBT rights; as issues on which I feel the need to speak out, regardless of how it hurts feelings, although generally I’m pretty well mannered. I played around with the idea of defending the idea of a male in a short skirt but it was just too complicated and off topic.
I do sort of see all this distress as coming from a concern our ideas of normal aren’t really acceptable any longer. Frankly, that’s a good thing in my mind, since I am A-okay with finding out I was mistaken. Being mistaken isn’t a new feeling for me.
Thanks for pointing out the humor, hunt. Congrats. Not many people could come up with a knee-slapper like that while consumed with the vapors over a miniature headcovering.
Goody. Always a few bad apples in the bunch. I’m still telling you I had never heard of them. I also never heard of not letting black girls into a sorority either.
PG: I don’t argue racism isn’t a southern problem. I just don’t believe it is only a southern problem. There may or may not have been blackface parties at your college when you were there. I didn’t even register some parties I remembered, as blackface parties, until decades later. I didn’t really see them at the time, because I wasn’t associating with the boys throwing that sort of party. But those boys were out in the streets, wearing the “costumes” and I was just overlooking them. In my social circle, it wasn’t questioned. These days it would be.
You may be right. It may not have happened while you were in college. I can’t google past recent events very easily. And I’m really not trying to trip you up. I’m just thinking about norms.
So do you think it never happened on your southern campus, or do you think you never noticed it on your southern campus because maybe it didn’t seemingly have anything to do with you?
I really don’t think all this offensive stuff, that various groups are objecting to, just suddenly started happening in the last few years for the first time.
IMHO - This is like acquaintance rape. When we didn’t have words to name it, it didn’t yet exist for us. Forty years ago (on my campus, if not on anyone else’s) a whole lot of white people didn’t have words to name blackface as racist. It was “normal” humor.
Wearing a sombrero is one thing. Wearing a sombrero and mowing a lawn is quite another. Let’s please not conflate light hearted sombrero-with-my-tequila-and-salsa with the latter.
The KA parties were awful. I am watching confederate flags go up in my locale in response to the SC massacre last summer. That is beyond awful.
Does the fact this is going on in my backyard lessen the impact of other sorts of racism in other locales? Does it make me someone who shouldn’t speak out? I am just not sure what your point is.
Because A is evil, doesn’t necessarily mean B and C aren’t also evil. Is arguing about degrees of evil more useful than just condemning them all?
I think degrees of evil is precisely the discussion we are having. A fraternity making pledges mow the lawn while wearing sombreros is very different from a party at which sombreros were present as one of several props in a photo booth or to add color to a tequila/fiesta themed party. An event in which people dress in blackface wth express intent to mock is very different from a chef honoring MLK day by offering traditionally black foods in the dining hall. The inability of people to discern mocking/evil intent from bad taste, and bad taste from neutral taste, is exactly on point.
Okay. Well who gets to judge degrees of evil? What constitutes bad taste? I know I’m not smart enough. I’d rather err on the side of caution these days. It doesn’t harm me in any way to do so. I’d rather go overboard than risk offending.
I do see all of this on a continuum. And since I’m living among these flags, it really gets my attention. I support pushing the line as far as possible in hopes of getting rid of the flags, which are described as a God given patriotic right and definitely not racist symbols.
I am curious what people think would be some good appropriate can’t-offend-anyone themes are for teen age parties. My son’s student government (high school) came up with more than ten themes, and none were approved. They settled on Wild West. But the kids were told native American garb of any type was out. So I guess Cowboys, settlers, and horses are acceptable. We tried to help come up with ideas that would be fun and appealing to both male and female - with no luck.
@amarylandmom Possibly ones that don’t depend on ethnic stereotypes?
popular movies or books, amazing race, decades (70s 80s whatever), neon/glow, hollywood, camping, disco, masquerade, casino…I could go on, but we can all google, too.
Our local HS has fan dress-up themes for certain b-ball and football games. Our district is sort of upper-middle and pretty highly educated so other school fans like to dress as nerds when they come - broken glasses, preppy clothes, whatever. The kids here liked to wear camo when the rural district down the highway came, etc. One theme bordered on “ghetto” when playing against a more diverse poorer district, etc. Kids were annoyed the school stopped them from doing all that, and they still push it sometimes, but now they have to get their fan dress up ideas approved in advance by the administration.
Just catching up as I pack for a trip to Mexico early tomorrow but I had to comment on this re Speedy Gonzalez.
Ironically, this is the one thing my normally thick skinned culturally Mexican husband hates-Speedy Gonzalez. It’s the character he brings up when talking about not finding things offensive. “It’s not Speedy Gonzalez.” When I really wanted to rib him all I had to say was “Arriba, arriba, andale, andale!”
I don’t find Speedy himself all that terrible but I do find the other mice and cats (the foils to the energetic Speedy) pretty horrible and extremely stereotypical of poor attitudes toward Mexicans-lazy, alcoholic, violent and stupid. Here’s what I’m talking about. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wYi_hq2p1Ac https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WMWq2PL8Djg
I agree with those who say it’s better to gently let someone know you are bothered by something they’ve done, like have a tequila party with sombreros, than go full out and start banning people for minor offenses.
I’ll be curious to see the perspective of the people I’ll be seeing this weekend on this whole issue. They’re all Mexican-Mexican, not Mexican-American, so I wonder if they’d view the conflict in a different light than Mexican-American students who may have had to deal with more stupid comments from Americans of European descent. I do know I’ll get an earful about Trump and his comments. The Mexicans I know are quite disturbed that so many Americans support him.
Some from my high school and college days: Woodstock, Roaring 20s, Fairy Tales, Happy Days/Grease, '80s roller skate, Atlantis (aka “Enchantment under the Sea,” which we all saw in “Back to the Future”).
I love the fact that my kids’ school’s big party was a 80’s dance. My daughter called to find out if her horrible outfit was the kind of stuff we genuinely wore in the 80’s. I was embarrassed to say it was!