Will someone please explain to me what is transpiring at Yale, Dartmouth, Amherst, and the Claremont Colleges, to name just a handful of super-elite schools that have been disrupted by such burning issues as . . . Halloween costumes? It seems inconceivable, but at both Yale (my alma mater) and Claremont McKenna College, administrators’ necks are on the chopping block for insufficient zeal in quashing “cultural appropriation,” America’s bugbear du jour.
Cultural appropriation means that, unless you were born in Guadalajara, dressing up as the Frito Bandito is a very, very bad idea. What about dressing in drag? Isn’t that “gender appropriation”? Unless, of course, it’s a transgender statement – can’t condemn that! All hail Caitlyn Jenner!
To me, cultural appropriation means that Gilbert and Sullivan’s “The Mikado” will never be performed again on a college campus in my lifetime. What a loss. I’m not sure I could name a work of equal subtlety and brilliance. Wait until the latter-day Dink Stovers discover what Gilbert and Sullivan’s “Iolanthe” is about. If G&S were a stock, this would be the time to sell.
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