Just in time to prevent culturally-insensitive Halloween costumes, Carleton’s Engineers Without Borders chapter hosted an event on cultural appropriation Oct. 29.
The event, titled “Cultural appropriation 101: the TruDo’s and TruDont’s of Dressing Up,” consisted of an interactive presentation where students were asked to discuss what cultural appropriation means to them and what are appropriate costumes to wear for Halloween.
Engineers Without Borders co-president and co-leader of the event, Connor Ruprecht, said he felt cultural appropriation was especially relevant this year in light of Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s brownface scandal.
“Once this Trudeau stuff came out we were like, ‘OK, we’re gonna sacrifice you know like two hours of studying time and come up with ideas and do this thing,’” Ruprecht said. “Because it’s more relevant now than ever.”
Despite cultural appropriation’s relevance, Ruprecht said they were the only group on-campus who seemed willing to talk about it.
“We didn’t see anybody else doing it really,” he said. “We just didn’t think people were talking about it enough, and we didn’t know who to go to, so we thought, ‘OK, we’ll just do it ourselves.’”
No other group on campus held an event specifically about the cultural appropriation that occurs around Halloween this year.
Alexandra Wilson, Engineers Without Borders vice-president (fundraising), said having the society host the event draws in students that can be overlooked during these conversations.
“It’s kind of nice maybe that an engineering stream is doing this,” Wilson said. “It provides awareness to a community that would otherwise sort of be on the outs about stuff like this based on being in a STEM program versus an arts program, where more of this is up for discussion.”
“Maybe this is the right reason to do stuff like this in this community because it reaches people that otherwise it wouldn’t reach,” she added.
Although he is happy to host the event, Ruprecht said he thinks other stakeholders on-campus should have weighed in.
“I mean I don’t think it’s CUSA’s job, but I think that CUSA or at least like even Carleton in general, there should be resources out there,” he said.
Ruprecht added he thinks the Prime Minister’s scandal should act as a “warning sign” for CUSA and Carleton that more education is needed on cultural appropriation.
“Really it’s about education instead of just naming and shaming so hopefully this starts that discussion,” he said. “Just gets people thinking, even though it’s not my intent to harm people, there are these underlying issues that I’m perpetuating just by wearing something.”
Ruprecht led the event alongside Engineers Without Borders vice-president (advocacy), Rodala Aranya, who said she recognized the event would benefit from more diverse presenters.
“Obviously, Connor’s a white dude, I’m not, that’s like the first thing,” she said. “And again even that, like a white dude and a brown girl, that’s not really diversity.”
“That is something moving forward, we’d really like to bring in an Indigenous perspective,” Aranya added. “Because we can’t talk for 50 minutes about cultural appropriation of Indigenous culture and not have someone up there.”
Ruprecht also weighed in on the diversity of presenters.
“One of the reasons why I wanted Rodala here is because like it shouldn’t just be some white dude preaching about cultural appropriation,” he said.
Ruprecht added although he has not lived the experience of being culturally appropriated against, he hopes he can help advocate for the cause.
“If I’m speaking to like my fellow white man and I can change their opinion and make them reconsider things, then I’d be happy,” he said.
Although Aranya emphasized both herself and Ruprecht are not experts, she offered her take on cultural appropriation during Halloween.
“Culture is not a costume,” she said. “We can differ on when you can wear certain cultural items, but Halloween you’re dressing up in a costume, we all agree on that.”
Aranya added it is important to know the significance and appreciate cultural items if students do want to wear something from a different culture during their everyday lives.
“I honestly think it’s just based on respect,” Aranya said. “Two-way discussion and respect is at the core of cultural exchange and cultural appreciation.”
Both presenters said they want to make their cultural appropriation event an annual occurrence and hope they are not alone on campus next year.
Featured image by Tim Austen.
