The cultural appropriation assessment taking UMass by storm

If you’ve experienced Res Life at Umass, then you’ve experienced the appropriation speech. Each year it seems that UMass attempts to educate it’s some 20,000 students on what not to wear come Halloween weekend and each year it seems a miserable failure.

What exactly is cultural appropriation you may ask? Well, think of it like this…if you’re presenting yourself as another race or culture in any way, whether you mean for it to be satirical or not, it’s probably appropriation.

But this year several campus organizations have joined together to be a clear as possible when it comes to costumes and cultural appropriation. In most dorms now you can find your local “S.C.R.E.A.M.” chart (Simple Costume Racism Evaluation and Assessment Meter). The S.C.R.E.A.M. Chart is a list of questions to ask yourself that will guide you to a final “threat level” for your costume.

The assessment begins with the question, “is your costume a person or a thing/idea?” and goes on from there to discuss race and representation.

The S.C.R.E.A.M. charts have caused quite a stir in the community. For example, Daily Collegian writer, Brad Polumbo, presents this idea with the worries that Umass might be trying to take away people’s rights to have opposing views or to make mistakes:

“Essentially, whenever an institution such as UMass takes upon itself the role of deeming which viewpoints, behaviors and practices are correct or acceptable and which are not, is that not authoritarianism?”

In the end, however, it would seem clear that rather than ‘taking control’ over other people’s freedom, the creators of S.C.R.E.A.M. are merely trying a new approach in spreading the awareness of cultural appropriation.

We are a campus that is proud of our ‘progressive attitude,’ so it we had best practice what we preach.