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Last Wednesday in advance of Cinco De Mayo, Gonzaga University in Spokane, WA. sent out an email to the student body that said in part, "At some college campuses, including our own, students create 'theme' parties or dress in costumes that are insensitive and offensive..."
In other words, "Lose the sombrero." Don't "appropriate the Mexican culture."
Where does multiculturalism and political correctness ultimately take us?
Judi Biggs Garbuio, vice president for student development at Gonzaga lamented that "there are many instances when Cinco de Mayo becomes a holiday that is full of cultural appropriation."
She encouraged students to go to the university's Facebook page of Gonzaga's Unity Multicultural Education Center to learn about alternative ways to celebrate Cinco de Mayo---and not be insensitive to Mexican culture.
On the Facebook page, the multicultural center directs you to an infographic which warns "Don't you dare put on that sombrero."
And if you click in the right place, you go to "6 Ways To Celebrate Cinco De Mayo Without Appropriating The Mexican Culture."
I'm not going to review the 6 ways because that's not my point, but #2 actually does say, "It's a good thing to ask yourself if what you're wearing may be offensive to the culture you're celebrating. If you have to ask, you should probably refrain."
Ironically, no one was asking before the appropriation police rode into town. What is now "appropriation" was once considered a compliment.
The instruction says "cultural appropriation is any person dressing up to represent a different culture and picking pieces of another culture for their own gain."
Of course. All of us should have known that.
That brings to mind a girl that recently wore a---I'm not sure what I should call it, but prior to this, I would have called it a beautiful Chinese dress, to her prom. She was verbally attacked by some of her peers as being opportunistic, racist, insensitive and selfish for "appropriating" the dress.
Gonzaga's Unity Multicultural Education center suggests becoming informed before you appropriate someone else's culture.
A little update on our own U.S. culture.
America's "melting pot " culture made the country great.
Victor Davis Hanson has written an outstanding and informative article for America's culture, and why it's different than every other country in history---one of the reasons America is exceptional.
"The history of most nations is mostly characterized by ethnic and racial uniformity, not diversity," Hanson says.
Countries and societies that were ethnically homogeneous, such as the Germanic tribes or modern Japan, felt that they were inherently more stable and secure than the alternative, whether late imperial Rome or contemporary America.
Most countries have typically referred to people from somewhere other than where your family is from as "others."
Example: The premise of Nazi Germany was to incorporate all German "Volk" into one vast racially and linguistically harmonious "Reich"---even if it meant destroying the national borders of Austria, Czechoslovakia, and Poland.
Sometimes history tells us violent force was used to integrate people groups like the Austro-Hungarians, the Ottomans, and the Soviets used deadly force to make it work.
Certainly, early America had its share of ethnic differences with nicknames for most of us depending which country our ancestors came from.
However, the U.S. matured to become what our Founders had envisioned---a nation formed upon shared values, not superficial appearance.
America is history's exception.
We began as a Republic founded by European migrants and could have been on a path that would have led to becoming another nation on the planet---except for 2 things. A God-given purpose, and a Constitution blessed by God, the author of our liberty and freedom.
Eventually, those who decided to give up their prior identity and assume a new American persona, became American.
The U.S. cherished its "melting pot" identity---e pluribus unum. From many, one. When immigration was controlled, measured and coupled with a confident approach to assimilation, America thrived.
Problems only arose when our borders were compromised and illegal immigration rose dramatically, with no assimilation. Or even an interest in assimilation.
During the late 20th century America seemed to give up on our founding principles and embrace "multiculturalism"
Hyphenated names became popular, jobs and colleges hired and granted admissions predicated on racial pedigrees and quotas. Courts ruled that present discrimination was allowable compensation for past discrimination.
America moved from being a multiracial melting pot to a multicultural nation of tribes.... Now at war with one another.
Hanson says, "So far America has beaten the odds and remained multiracial rather than multicultural...and has thereby become the most powerful nation in the world."
He says, "For those who see America becoming a multicultural state of unassimilated tribes and competing racial groups, history will not be kind. The history of state multiculturalism is one of discord, violence, chaos, and implosion."
This, of course, is exactly what Gonzaga and most educational institutions in our country are advocating. Whether they are blinded by political correctness, bound by the chains of secular relativistic progressivism, or simply hate America as it was founded, the result will be the same.
How we got here.
Briefly. When Communist Marxism failed in Europe, disciples of Karl Marx developed a new kind of Marxism---cultural Marxism, that they believed could be integrated into western culture---with a goal of destroying western culture, which they hate.
One disciple, Antonio Gramsci, was active during the 1920s and 30s. He envisioned that the new cultural Marxist revolution would entail---"a long, multi-generational march through the culture."
Gramsci said, "Marxists must change the residually Christian mind...so that it would become not merely a non-Christian mind but an anti-Christian mind."
He taught that "Socialism is precisely the religion that must overwhelm Christianity...In the new order, Socialism will triumph by first capturing the culture via infiltration of schools, universities, churches, and the media...which will transform the consciousness of society" Gramsci claimed.
And he taught, "We must get to individuals in every social class to think about life's problems without reference to the Christian transcendent, without reference to God and the laws of God...and get them to react with antipathy and positive opposition to any introduction of Christian ideals...in regard to the problems of life."
The solution.
Founding Father Patrick Henry said, "When people forget God, tyrants forge their chains"
I do not oversimplify the solution. Put God back in the culture as our Founders intended. Stop "forgetting Him." When God's people lead in remembering God and being engaged, renewal will follow.
I personally believe we are at the threshold of a new spiritual awakening.
Be Informed. Be Engaged. Be Prayerful. Be Hopeful.