Is wearing a sombrero "cultural appropriation?" If you don a serape--or a guayabera, a kimono, a Hawaiian shirt--does that make you racist?
Well, please don't revoke my correctness card, but I don't think so.
Maybe it's just because I view such items as staples of Tex-Mex culture. As a kid growing up in central Texas, I could expect Mexican-themed souvenirs from every across-the-border vacation: embroidered blouses, maracas, those lovely hand-painted child-sized chairs.
So my first impulse was to offer the benefit of the doubt to the Baylor University fraternity now in hot water over a recent Mexico-themed party. To date, the only evidence made public has been social media photos of students dressed in some of the aforementioned garb, which seems harmless enough.
More concerning are reports that some guests at the Kappa Sigma party dressed as maids and construction workers, that some even wore dark makeup, and that they joined in a hearty chant of "Build that wall!" Entitled white kids who engage in that particular piece of political rudeness are a cringe-worthy embarrassment.
Baylor is a ripe target these days; the gravitational weight of its appalling sexual abuse scandal inevitably pulls lesser offenses into the public domain. If its boosters and regents think the university is now being scrutinized through a microscope for every little thing, they have nobody to blame but you-know-who.
Back, though, to those fun-lovin' Kappa Sigs, whose Baylor chapter was suspended after the "racially insensitive event" recently. On campus, angry students protested the frat this week, calling for a series of "cultural awareness" measures to be instituted campus-wide.
To many observers, this might smack of some of the more absurd "cultural appropriation" debates that have erupted on U.S. campuses over such innocuous issues as hoop earrings, dreadlocks and cafeteria Chinese food.
What is outside the bounds of plain decency, however, is ugly mockery of racial stereotypes, of defining people you don't know personally in crude, derisive caricatures.
So which was it at Baylor? How to tell, because intent is so often obscured by human ambiguity.
Here's a suggestion: Ask them what they were celebrating.
How many of the partygoers could actually detail the meaning of Cinco de Mayo (Fifth of May) which reportedly was idiotically hijacked as Drinko de Mayo for the frat fiesta?
How many of them could tell you that there's a serious historical event behind their giddy ingestion of Coronas and margaritas?
If they can competently cover those basics, maybe they should get a pass.
If their knowledge of Mexican culture and history is limited to spring break in Cancun, maybe they shouldn't.
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Jacquielynn Floyd is a columnist for the Dallas Morning News.
Editorial on 05/06/2017