Tik Tok prompts culture discussion

“My culture is not a costume.” This statement was displayed on the screen as students and faculty gathered in the Multicultural Center on Friday evening for a meeting hosted by the campus club Exploring Latin American Culture (ELAC). Co-presidents of ELAC, CSB junior Stacey Delgado and SJU senior Cesar Lopez-Rodriguez began the event on Friday evening with a presentation. They addressed a cultural appropriation incident and reiterated that the goal of the gathering was to have a conversation rather than a debate.

The incident took place on Halloween after the CSB dance team hosted a team dip night. Members dressed up to coordinate with a dip they had made for the group.

Following the event, a video was posted on the CSB dance team’s TikTok, displaying the members’ dips and costumes. Two members posed wearing sombreros hats to coordinate with their taco dip. The video remained public for five hours until it was taken down by the owners of the account.

“You might be thinking, it was just a hat,” Lopez-Rodriguez said. “What’s the big deal?”

Delgado countered with the Benedictine values, which are the pillars of the CSB+SJU community.

“To offer warmth, acceptance and joy in welcoming others,” Delgado said. “I don’t feel warmth, nor acceptance nor joy.”

“Wearing the attire of a sombrero, a sweatshirt and sweatpants, it is delivered in the message that our culture is a simple costume that you can put on for Halloween,” Lopez Rodriguez said.

The incident was initially addressed when CSB senior Dana Alcala made a statement on Wednesday evening at the St. Ben’s Senate meeting.

Alcala described what had happened and urged senators to push for institutional changes and action to educate students about cultural appropriation and appreciation before incidents occur.

“You have 365 days out of the year to celebrate a culture, but you’re choosing Halloween to wear a costume to celebrate that culture, and there’s a clear disconnect there,” Alcala said. “There’s so many other opportunities for you to make a relationship with cultural groups on our campuses.”

Alcala noted that the group affected by cultural appropriation incidents is not responsible for combatting the issue. Alcala demanded accountability on behalf of the institution and for the dance team to apologize. “Accountability is saying you messed up and then to come out of that mistake making new relationships and understanding why what you did was wrong,” Alcala said. “You’re a human, and you’re going to mess up, but that’s OK, and this is a good lesson for you to move on and be even better a human.”

At the event, attendees were given questions to facilitate the conversation when Delgado and Lopez-Rodriguez concluded their opening remarks.

“To you, what is cultural appropriation and cultural appreciation?”

This was one of the questions that prompted discussion. The room buzzed as individuals conversed with one another reflecting upon topics revolving around cultural appropriation and the incident that had occurred. The meeting then transitioned to an open-floor discussion, where all audience members were invited to make statements and ask questions. In the audience was CSB sophomore Joselyn Rubio-Correa, a board member of ELAC. Rubio-Correa noted that after the incident occurred, the conversation on the social media platform Yik Yak became frightening as anonymous users began making racist statements. “It was great to see people in support of us after reading all of the Yik Yak posts,” Rubio-Correa said. “Like one of my colleagues mentioned, I felt unsafe and scared to go to an institution where the majority of the people are white and how they created a mockery of this situation.”

Yik Yak is a social media app that combines GPS and instant messaging technologies to allow users to share anonymous messages with others in a 10-mile radius. Following the Wednesday night Senate meeting, comments regarding the situation filled the Yik Yak thread.

This quote was one of many that filled the Yik Yak thread of anonymous statements:

“If you have a problem with non-Mexican people wearing sombreros, then you better keep that same energy when someone non-Nordic dresses as a Viking because not only do they not know about Vikings culture, but [they] are also usually incorrectly portraying a Viking.”

Malik Stewart, director of Multicultural Student Services, was present at the event on Friday evening.

“It’s important to note that this is a community issue, and you can’t just scapegoat the people who posted the video because we are all a part of it,” Stewart said. “So what are we going to do differently to try and prevent things like this from happening again?”

Before closing, CSB dance senior captains Elise Sande and Trisha Gebhart addressed the crowd and made an apology on behalf of the dance team.

“We are here to apologize on behalf of our team for the TikTok that was posted,” Sande said. “It is our utmost goal to represent our team and campus in a way that is loving and inclusive to all people and cultures.”

Sande and Gebhart acknowledged the negative impact of the dance team’s actions and shared their plans moving forward to partake in bias training and educate themselves.

To conclude the meeting, Delgado and Lopez-Rodriguez invited all attendees to become involved in ELAC and reiterated that all people, no matter their background, are welcome.

Delgado and Lopez-Rodriguez shared their hopes for furthering the conversation, as well as gratitude for those who attended the event and contributed to the conversation.

“I think it went really well for somewhere to start this conversation, and now we’re finding out what we can improve on,” Delgado said.