Darren Boyle, Daily Mail
White female students have been told to scrap their ‘hoop earrings’ because the style results from the ‘oppression and exclusion’ of black people.
A group of Latino students at Pitzer College in Los Angeles wrote on a ‘free wall’ used for unmoderated free speech, ‘White Girl, take off your hoops’.
One white student raised a question with authorities about the message, when fellow student Alegria Martinez responded by emailing the entire student body.
The issue was first reported on the college Claremont Independent newspaper.
Martinez is a member of the Latinx Student Union.
She wrote:
[T]he art was created by myself and a few other WOC [women of color] after being tired and annoyed with the reoccuring [sic] theme of white women appropriating styles … that belong to the black and brown folks who created the culture.
The culture actually comes from a historical background of oppression and exclusion.
The black and brown bodies who typically wear hooped earrings, (and other accessories like winged eyeliner, gold name plate necklaces, etc) are typically viewed as ghetto, and are not taken seriously by others in their daily lives.
Because of this, I see our winged eyeliner, lined lips, and big hoop earrings serving as symbols [and] as an everyday act of resistance, especially here at the Claremont Colleges.
Meanwhile we wonder, why should white girls be able to take part in this culture (wearing hoop earrings just being one case of it) and be seen as cute/aesthetic/ethnic. White people have actually exploited the culture and made it into fashion.
