As November and December roll around, and the weather gets colder, students begin to
celebrate, often dressing up in the spirit of the holiday season. With costumes and celebrations surrounding certain cultures comes the issue of cultural appropriation. At Parker, in such a spirited and intimate community, issues surrounding cultural appropriation can become incredibly divisive —and have a powerful effect on the student body.

On October 30, the school pushed forth a concerted effort to make students fully aware of their behavioral and costume choices, talking about it in great detail at Morning Ex, with advisors being encouraged to discuss the matter with their students. While the message itself can be construed as constructive, many students are wondering if the school is overreaching in its efforts to enforce new rules surrounding cultural appropriation.
With Thanksgiving right around the corner and related programming such as the Thanksgiving MX and Model Home events coming up (as of writing this piece), this conversation will show itself again.

The school has been extremely careful in the past with events surrounding Thanksgiving, and in light of the recent push for more culturally aware programming during Halloween, we might raise the question: Is it too risky to celebrate these holidays at Parker?

The scare surrounding cultural appropriation and insensitive costume choices daring the holidays is nothing new. Every year schools around the nation send out emails, hold meetings, and generally advise students to make wise, informed choices. At Yale University in 2015, the school laid out strict guidelines on costumes for students. This, along with other conversations the school had, incited a great debate about the school’s role in student life.

The argument for less involvement by the school was summarized in an email to the school and the student body by Erika Christakis, a faculty member at the school, who lectures in childhood education, and lives on campus. In the email she argued that, while schools should provide guidance to a point, by students practicing self–censorship and having conversations with each other over their costume choices, will grow in a more impactful way than if they were just told what to do.

According to Parker’s Dean of Students Christian Bielizna, the email he sent out on Oct. 30th was supposed to begin such conversations, and make students more aware of the choices they make. By addressing “hot–button issues,” Bielizna hoped to provoke among students “thoughtfulness is what they’re choosing.” He hoped that the ensuing conversations would enough ensure students informed decisions.

On certain topics, however, Bielizna made sure that there was no room for interpretation. Instead of inviting students to think carefully about some of their choices, he explicitly outlawed certain kinds of costumes. The email states if a student were to come to school in blackface, yellowface, or in another form of openly and intentionally derogatory dress, it would have proved extremely harmful to the school community. While a discussion may be important to student growth, there are certain things that could cause too much harm to the school community reflect badly on Parker that should not, under any circumstances, be considered welcome in the Upper School.

While this type of explicit prohibition is welcome when talking about issues such as blackface, yellowface, and other extremely derogatory “costumes,” students are worried that this tone may have spread too far, limiting their ability to self express. This conversation has specifically centered around the clause that says, “Do not dress as a gay figure if you are not gay.”

Many students believe that they should be allowed to dress as gay figures, most citing the fact that they are not dressing up as the person because they are gay, but rather because they appreciate what the person stands for apart from their sexuality. Freshman Carter Wagner said “A straight person should have been able to dress up as Elton John, but they should have been Elton John, not ‘that gay guy.’”

Through these conversations, the school has created a more empathic, aware student body, and there is no doubt that this serves the whole student population well. While a discourse between the student body and the administration needs to be had on the specific language of the guidelines, and while the topic potentially needs to be explored in more detail, these initial conversations will serve the Parker community well in the long run.