Just a few days ago, I got on twitter to find some really horrific news. A bunch of students at my old high school had worn incredibly offensive outfits. It was their Senior Week, you see, so they got to dress up in accordance with different themes each day. They used blackface to dress up as Migos, The Jackson Five, and more, and one student dressed up as Hitler. They didn’t get sent home. The school district released a statement saying, “Campus administrators have addressed students and directed those whose costumes may be questionable to remove offensive makeup or props, or alter their costumes.” Another worker from the district noted that the guidelines for Senior Week are under review, offering assurance that changes will be made so this does not happen again. The district asked for parent support in preventing students from leaving the house in “a costume that could be deemed offensive.”
The issue here is not so much that I am disgusted with these students, but that I am more disgusted with the adults surrounding them. I’m disgusted with the culture of anti-blackness that permeates my hometown. Where were the parents, the older siblings, the teachers and administrators telling them clearly, with no room for confusion, that this was wrong? Why is the district carefully positing their statement to costumes that “could be deemed” offensive instead of condemning white supremacy and blackface? The population of the city is 95% Hispanic, leaving the city to be named one of the least ethno-racially diverse cities in the United States.
It is not enough to scold these students and not force them to face punishment for their actions. Letting them go with a slap on the wrist will only allow them to think that they could get away with this again, that people on the internet dragging them for this are just oversensitive. It’s very easy for the Latinx community in my hometown to believe the narrative that this is not offensive and awful. Many tried to make the argument that the black community that cried out against these photos on Twitter were “snowflakes,” that this was not racism because (the students in blackface, at least) were just trying to show their appreciation for their favorite celebrities. Some even made the argument that pointing this out as a social issue wasn’t helpful, that the people doing so weren’t the ones actually protesting for civil rights—but the two aren’t mutually exclusive.
The issue that isn’t being grasped is that these depictions of black celebrities are harmful to communities at large in perpetuating stereotypical ideas of what it is to be black. Moreover, it is treated as a costume—these students can strip themselves of this artificial blackness at the end of the day and not understand the prejudices involved with being a member of that race. There are ways of dressing as black celebrities without reducing them to caricatures of themselves. Being Latinx (mostly Mexican, in my hometown’s case) does not excuse us from acknowledging the ways that our experiences differ from other people of color and the complexities of privilege. The safety of being in a city wherein we Latinx are the majority has allowed too many people I know to become complacent with the prejudices they encounter—both within others and within themselves.
And, these students should, theoretically, know that. We live in a time of deep political anxiety, and this information has been made readily available on many platforms by many artists and activists. I don’t want to make it seem like I’m committing myself to one side of the spectrum. I think that these students are failed by a public education system that doesn’t prepare them or the community around them to deal with situations like this. But, I also think that they should be made to take some responsibility for their ignorance. It could even be arguable, in this case, that it was willful ignorance (Hitler? That’s just painfully uncaring of millions of human lives).
I understand that it’s incredibly easy for me to make these points from 1500 miles away, protected by my own bubble—a liberal arts school in the middle of Ohio. I understand that the language surrounding these issues usually isn’t accessible. I’ve done my best effort to not include a lot of the academic language that would turn this into an elitist rant that demonizes the people from my hometown. I just remember the anti-blackness I grew up with, and I see especially potent examples of it like this and I am overwhelmed by the urge to speak up. I thank the people who reported these photos. I thank the people who made efforts on social media to explain why these actions should be denounced. I thank everyone, especially those Latinx people to whom these ideas might be novel, for listening to me as I give my two cents on a topic tied to a deeper historical lineage of racism as a survival strategy, of ignorance that comes from language made unreachable to many. I thank everyone who is trying to generate greater respect for the people around us. But we must all admit that this is a conversation that needs to be opened up and made accessible to many, many more. That is the only way we can hope to see change.
Image Credits: Feature, 1, 2, 3