Okay, so I guess these past couple weeks have been bad for civil rights, but apparently, it’s not a rare issue here in America. I mean technically the past couple of centuries have been bad for civil rights. It’s just so baffling to me that people can be so… Oh, I don’t know, racist, culturally insensitive, privilege-abusing (kind of an oxymoron I guess) and ignorant…

I’m writing this in response to an article about a fraternity in Texas (a chapter of Kappa Sigma from Baylor University) that was suspended for having a “Cinco de Drinko” party. As if that isn’t bad enough (it’s not Mexican Independence Day, by the way), there were reports of people literally painting their faces brown and wearing construction worker and maid uniforms, with rumored shouts of “build that wall” which, as someone pointed out, was rather ironic considering the appropriation of stereotypical Mexican culture via the Mexican-themed party (though it is a bit of a stretch to even consider it Mexican themed with such glaring stereotypes).

I’m honestly at a bit of a loss for words. I mean, I guess this is a result of privilege, coming from people who’ve never had to experience the kind of hard work that many immigrant Mexicans have had to. Making fun of these professions is not cool. I doubt any of the people wearing those uniforms at that party have had a day of real work in their lives, and if they had to, I’m sure they couldn’t handle it.

I recently watched the Netflix series “Dear White People”, and incidentally, a large event in the show was a fraternity blackface party. I wondered if it was based on a specific event, so I looked it up. It didn’t appear to be based off any specific occurrence, but that’s not for lack of them. A cursory search turns up plenty of examples, the first of which details 13 that have happened in the recent past, as in, the majority of them happened in the past FOUR years.

And obviously, it’s still happening. It’s funny, but not funny, but apparently, a lot of white people were offended by the show. It’s been called “anti-white” (honestly, so what, I mean how much of daily American culture is anti-everything else, you really can’t take ONE show touting something else?), and some people have attempted to boycott Netflix because of it. I mean...the people who are offended are soundly proving the point that the show is trying to make, along with the sadly relevant issue of racist college parties.

I don’t see how throwing a party like that seems like a good idea to anyone. Like really, do you need that much of an excuse to get drunk? Do you really need to appropriate, in an offensive, stereotypical fashion, a culture that is already disrespected enough here in America? Obviously, no one thought that through very much, though, which is perhaps the root of the issue.

As I mentioned, the fraternity was suspended, but only after there were protests by members of the student body in response to it. At least action was taken, but it’s an issue that shouldn’t be an issue. People of college age should have enough sense to know that a party like that shouldn’t happen and they should have enough sense to know that they shouldn’t be painting their faces another color.