Cultural Appropriation at College: The Secret Life of Tomorrow’s Leaders

Insensitivity to Native American culture and history was widespread in 2012, from political campaigns to pop culture. As a 5C student, I was disappointed to find this insensitivity echoed on my own campus.

In November alone, both No Doubt and Victoria’s Secret pulled content after charges of racism. No Doubt took down their music video “Looking Hot” due to its cowboys-and-Indians theme, which included headdresses, tepees, and smoke signals. Victoria’s Secret model Karlie Kloss donned a Native American headdress along with a leopard print bikini in the Victoria’s Secret Fashion Show, which was edited out of the TV airing on December 4.

On the bright side, both these parties acknowledged their mistake. On the No Doubt website, No Doubt stated, “Our intention with our new video was never to offend, hurt or trivialize Native American people, their culture or their history. Although we consulted with Native American friends and Native American studies experts at the University of California, we realize now that we have offended people.”

Unfortunately, November was also home to a much more localized instance of cultural appropriation. Like at many college students across the country, I’ve found that the cultural sensitivity taught in our classes is rarely applied to nightlife. I have long since given up on CMC’s TNC parties (open to 5Cs half the time) being beacons of political correctness, given that their names seem to follow a simple equation: “(adjective) Bros and (adjective) Hoes.” Some highlights from my freshman year were “Gym Bros and Yoga Pants Hoes” and the delightfully sexist “Boss Bros and Secretary Hoes.”

This year TNC organizers outdid themselves this year with the proposed theme “Thanksgiving: Bros, Pilgrims and Navajos.” This was the theme that warranted The Student Life to write a story called “TNC Theme Proposal Draws Charges of Racism” last November.

As a 5C student, I expected my peers to have at least the same level of accountability as No Doubt and Victoria’s Secret: Admit the mistake and apologize. However, that wasn’t what happened when The Student Life published their article.

Instead of admitting their mistake, many students have anonymously taken to the newspaper website to register their indignation at being called out for this racism. The most terrifying comment read like an excuse for date rape, asking “Have you been to a party and seen how these girls dress? if [sic] they cared that much they wouldn’t dress like that.” This is particularly disappointing when considering that these are students, according to Claremont McKenna’s website, are being primed for positions of “responsible leadership.”

According to Amnesty International, Native American women are two and a half times more likely than other women to be sexually assaulted in the United States. And while the findings from different studies can’t simply be multiplied together, this statistic is even more horrifying in a college context, when one in four women in college today has been the victim of rape, according to the New York City Alliance Against Sexual Assault.

I knew that sexual assault happens on college campuses, yet I still wanted to believe my fellow students were smarter, that the blue emergency lights visible from any point on the 5Cs were merely precautionary. The other comments did little to assure me that this was still the case.

For instance, one student commented, “If people are going to get offended by students dressing up as Native Americans to a THANKSGIVING party, then for goodness sake open a history book and read about the thanksgiving [sic] story which represents white people and Native Americans getting along.”

Unfortunately, such a history textbook likely begins American history with Columbus and mentions Native Americans (assuming it remembers not to call them “Indians”) only in reference to Thanksgiving and an apologetic paragraph about the Trail of Tears. To quote a particularly moving campaign against cultural appropriation, Native Americans are a culture, not a costume.

This idea was in no way unique to Claremont McKenna, and these quotes illustrate the mentality between advocates of this approach to partying – there were a good number of students giving me faith in the future by fighting against this sexualization and cultural appropriation that create rape culture. But while this party theme does not represent all Claremont McKenna students, it seems to be representative or a larger trend of encouraging thoughtless partying.

College Party Guru dedicates an entire page to instructions about how to host a “Colonial Bros and Navahos” party, an intentional word play to emphasize the “ho” in Navajo. The site acknowledges that “Navajo’s [sic] were not keen on showing cleavage, so to get that sexy Indian look, you’ll want to find your outfit in your basic costume shop. For authenticity, you’ll want to go with a leather wrap or dress.” Even a site that acknowledges that this portrayal isn’t true to Navajo culture still encourages an “authentic” sexualization while grouping Navajos with all other “Indians.”

The simplification of diverse Native American culture as Navajo is culturally insensitive, and racist when considered that Navajo is often selected because of “Navaho” wordplay (the spelling of the original proposed theme). This marginalization is hardly uncommon – in addition to earlier examples, this year the Navajo Nation sued Urban Outfitters to demand it stop using the Navajo name to market products such as the “Navajo Hipster Panty” and the “Navajo Flask.”

College party culture’s disrespectful themes aren’t unique to Native American culture – just this month Penn State sorority girls came under fire for dressing up as Mexicans with signs reading “Will mow lawn for weed and beer.” But while the media paid attention to them and many other examples in this past year, my real fear is that more often than not there is no consequence for this cultural insensitivity.

College students are the next generation of this world’s leaders. We have the privilege to fight to create the world we want to live in – and I’m afraid we’re doing it wrong.

Despite the offense Claremont McKenna took at these allegations of racism, and the continued sexism of their party themes, they are hardly alone in problematic party culture. In fact, some of their themes seem downright mild compared to College Party Guru’s suggestions of “Lawyer Bros and Prison Hoes,” “GI Joes & Army Hoes” or “King Tuts & Egyptian Sluts.”

Racist and sexist party themes only serve to reify the broken social norms of the past, norms we must work to put behind us. Unless we want the leaders of tomorrow to look like the leaders yesterday, it’s time to apply what we learn in the classroom to how we act on the dance floor.

Rachel Grate is a Scripps sophomore studying English and Gender & Women’s studies. In her free time, she blogs for both Ms. Magazine and Miss Representation. To read more of her work, follow her personal blog “Austen Feminist” on WordPress.