The Anti-Free-Speech Movement at UCLA

Whites must not wear saggy jeans

Last week, when this controversy began, many news outlets reported that some of the fraternity and sorority members who attended the “Kanye Western” theme party wore blackface. While that offensive behavior would not change the First Amendment analysis to come, there is no evidence for the claim: The Greek organizations deny it and no published photographs from the party depict anyone in blackface.

“We have been asked to respond specifically to rumors that some guests attended the event in blackface,” the fraternity said in a statement. “It is important that we put this rumor to rest. Some of our guests attended the event dressed as miners in reference to the Kanye West song ‘Gold Digger,’ but their attire had nothing to do with race.”

The Huffington Post has published a photograph that seems to confirm this explanation: a group of girls pose with a bit of soot smudged on their faces, but not covering it, and there can be no doubt that they are attempting to dress as miners, or “gold diggers,” because they are all holding plates of “gold” as if panning for it.

Others who objected to the theme party deemed it an example of cultural appropriation, a “microaggression” against black students, or deeply insensitive and hurtful.

“The sagging or baggy jeans that students wore to the party represent one of the most notorious African American stereotypes in fashion,” UCLA student Caleb Jackson wrote in The Daily Bruin. “So notorious in fact, that it has led several cities across the country to make sagging illegal. The racial undertones associated with this clothing style make its cultural appropriation highly offensive to Black students.”

Meanwhile, critics of the critics insist that West is a famous celebrity, not a stand-in for black culture; that stuffed butts were a reference to Kim Kardashian, who is white and of Armenian descent, not black; that there is nothing wrong with appropriating the dress of hip-hop culture, which is not the same as black culture; that it’s myopic for privileged student activists to focus on a frat theme party while living in a city plagued by police killings, homelessness, housing discrimination, and other injustices; that activists are giving Greek organizations too much power to set their agenda; and that college kids these days are oversensitive to the point of self-parody.

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