Forget that one of the costumes in Canyon High School's (Anaheim, Cali.) "Senores and Senoritas" event was a white teenager dressed as a pregnant Latina pushing a baby stroller. This is what gave me pause when reading the Los Angeles Times report of the controversy:
"The events, which have been held for at least three years at Canyon High School, took place during senior activity week in June and were approved by campus administrators, according to school district officials."
Three years?! It took school officials three years to figure out that it wasn’t cool for non-Hispanics to parade around a school sanctioned event reinforcing ugly stereotypes.
I blame Halloween. Over the past ten years, Halloween costumes have taken on increased cultural cachet. It’s like everything goes around Halloween.
Two frat brothers could go to this year’s Halloween dressed as Trayvon Martin and George Zimmerman and they’d probably get high-fives.
Let’s reel it in, people.
And then there’s this tidbit that adds another layer to this story, making it even a bigger headscracther:
“Anaheim has been rocked in recent weeks by demonstrations over allegations of police abuse in the city's Latino community following the fatal police shootings of two Latino men. Activists also contend that the municipal election system discriminates against Latinos, who are about 52% of the city's 336,000 residents but have rarely been elected. A sharply divided City Council recently voted down a proposed ballot measure to create voting districts to help increase Latino representation.”
But, eh, what the heck, let’s sanction a Hispanic-themed costume party at a predominantly white high school.
Who’s running these school?
