Taco night, Chinese food, wearing culturally proper clothing from someone else’s culture. All bad. So what about a good old-fashioned American Barbecue? Right here in what’s left of America?
Students at taxpayer-funded Ramapo College of New Jersey attempted to organize a themed barbecue to kick off the new school year but administrators decided the theme — “American BBQ” — was “offensive.” Consequently, students say, the administrators forced the students to ditch the “American BBQ” theme — and to describe the event as just a run-of-the-mill barbecue.
Trouble began to brew just two days before the “American BBQ” when one of the residence halls withdrew because someone — possibly a student, possibly an administrator — was offended by Uncle Sam-like flyers advertising the campus cookout. The flyers were too “military and recruitment-oriented” and “considered offensive,” student resident assistant Ariana Rivera explained to College Republicans president Taylor Gilson via email.
Personally, I’m more offended by “taxpayer-funded and New Jersey,” both of which are forms of appropriation, neither as interesting as where the college got its name. Ramapo is named after a native tribe (Ramapough) that to this day is the object of centuries of insult and injury.
