http://claremontindependent.com/pitzer-college-ra-white-people-cant-wear-hoop-earrings/
Oppression , exploitation and marginalization by wearing hoop earrings (as claimed by several students)? I am all for cultural sensitiviity, but come on…
Somoeone forgot to tell me I can’t wear hoops. Oopsie!
I guess as a 50 something white women I have issues with cultural appropriation. If I like a look I feel it is my choice to whether to wear it or not. My 17yo D and I get into lots of arguments about this. I don’t get the earring, the hairstyle, etc. argument. If I look stupid doing so, I look stupid why would anyone care. Like I said, my D and I have this argument on a regular basis.
It’s better to take an educational stance, then to create more derision. so instead of “take off those hoops!,” it would have been better to ask, “do you know where those hoops come from?” then explain.
The world has too much anger in it. The world has too much dialogue that pits us apart instead of brings us together.
Pitzer stuendts, take note.
It’s Pitzer. They’re college students. Hoop earrings being a cultural symbol never would have occurred to me, but then I don’t wear them, don’t follow fashion, and didn’t know they are still being worn (I associate them with the '60’s). They certainly sparked a discussion, if not in the most gentle manner.
I stopped wearing hoop earrings when DS was an infant, and he liked to pull on them when I was holding him. It hurt, and I never went back to them.
DD found them in my jewelry box when she became a teenager as DH and I made her wait til then to get her ears pierced. I told her she could have them.
When she was 16, she took a babysitting job for neighbors with an 8 month old and a 4 year old. She wore the earrings because she liked them, and learned the same lesson I did. They can hurt when they are pulled.
Newsflash:
Some people in the 17-22 age range can get carried away. Yawn.
Even college students need to learn. Don’t widen cultural gaps, narrow them. Try to leave the world a better place than when you found it.
I thought hoop earrings were an Italian thing!
Sorry, this is just stupid - especially with more pressing issues we are confronting as nation.
It’ll be painted over by tomorrow.
Oh that’s silly. I’m half Hispanic, half white, born in the 70’s, and I grew up wearing big hoop earrings and winged eyeliner. As a 40 something now, while the hoops are smaller and the eyeliner more tasteful, I’ll still wear that style any time I damn please.
What are the pirates of the world going to do?
For me it’s a fascinating subject. The hoops can be a symbol, like a hoodie. Trayvon Martin and Mark Zuckerberg, in hoodies, elicit different reactions. When designers show hoodies on the catwalks of NYC and Paris, there can be many different responses. Maybe “imitation is the sincerest form of flattery.” Maybe it’s something else entirely. When is art original?
Who owns the hoop look? As far as I know, they exist around the globe in ancient cultures. A friend wears two thousand plus year old Greek and Roman hoops. She lines her eyes like the women who originally wore them. She is copying, but not what the Pitzer student imagines.
Still, I liked reading her thoughts on this very much.
@alh-
I doubt very much the twits who claim “cultural appropriation” know enough to look up the history. Hoop earrings are ancient, and the cultural appropriation might have been from ancient Egypt for all we know, given the interaction between ancient civilizations (and if one theory is correct, hoop earrings might even have come to the ancient Mexican civilizations from Egypt many thousands of years ago, given they found tobacco in the lungs of a mummy). I also wonder if they understand the significance, that what was hanging from the ears was family wealth, in a sense it was a kind of piggy bank (from what I understand, the muti earring look can be traced to this).
Hoop earrings are seen as ghetto, and this affects how people view you. This can be a bigger deal that what one might assume at first glance because I’m sure this affects things like getting jobs and promotions.
warbrain - I liked that she pointed that out and described wearing them as an act of defiance. And then, in her mind, the white mainstream cuties up the look.
I don’t think she’s a twit at all. I like her and her email. I would definitely attend a conference on this stuff.
Adding: still today jewelry can be family wealth, maybe even hoops. And I’m pretty sure that crosses cultural and class divides. One woman pawns a ring. Another sells it at Sotheby’s or Christies.
This is the same college where students didn’t want to room with white people.
http://claremontindependent.com/students-at-claremont-colleges-refuse-to-live-with-white-people/
@alh:
I doubt it is an act of defiance, the person who wrote that and others were likely following the styles of peers and so forth wherever they grew up. It is much like tattoos and body piercing, that once were the province of cultural “outlaws” so to speak, bikers, people in the fetish/bdsm community, rockers and so forth, have become somewhat mainstream.
A bad example of a phenomenon doesn’t mean that the phenomenon doesn’t exist.