After six months of absence from social media, Activate, a group pursuing greater racial equality for APU students of color, reposted a photo on its Facebook page that initiated debate and conversation.
The photo was a screen shot of five APU students dressed for the Homecoming dance, their faces and names blurred out, wearing sombreros and fake mustaches with shirts that read “Juan Direction.” The costumes were based on a “Saturday Night Live” sketch that featured the musical group One Direction.
The photo was initially posted on a public Instagram account that has since become private.
“This is not merely an issue of “diversity” or “racial insensitivity,” this is RACISM. The perpetuation of racial stereotypes that appropriates the Latina/o identity through demeaning costumes is RACISM,” Activate’s post said.
Aaron Hinojosa, Student Center for Reconciliation and Diversity (SCRD) acting executive director, met with four of the five students alongside the Mosaic Caucus on Thursday. He said the university is using a reconciliation model in order to heal, move forward and become better as a whole.
Hinojosa said those involved acknowledged the offense, and both sides had a “posture of humility” and sought to see the pain the others were experiencing.
“The greatest part of what comes out of this is the opportunity to seek understanding and to gain that perspective from both sides on why it’s effective and to see the intent versus impact model,” Hinojosa said. “APU does not condone that in any way as far as the behavior or what the picture looked like. It is respect for all students, ethnicities, cultures and so on.”
The Mosaic Caucus, comprised of ethnic organization leaders, Student Government Association representatives and SCRD affiliates, released a joint statement explaining the purpose of the meeting and expressing its goal moving forward.
“During the meeting, we entered into a healthy dialogue where all participants were able to share their thoughts and opinions on the incident and provide understanding on how this issue could have affected students of all races and staff,” the statement read. “The female students were sincerely apologetic as well as fully understanding in the depth of this situation and in no way meant to poke fun or hurt anyone in the APU community.”
Hinojosa said that while many students desire an immediate resolution, the correct way to handle the situation requires a longer process. He hopes the student body can communicate competently, relationally and lovingly in order to gain perspective.
“The students were fully aware of the mistake that was made and acknowledged the learning experience that resulted from it. In our pursuit to seek out God-honoring diversity, extending grace to these students is very important in our attempt to cultivate a new APU culture of care,” the statement continued.
Hinojosa said the reconciliation has to be productive, biblical and gracious, and that there should be dialogue, not debate. He said the goal is for everyone to gain understanding, not to have a winner and a loser, and the only way for this to happen is in relationship face to face.
All six of the statuses Activate has posted since sharing the photo have been related to cultural appropriation or the initial post regarding the picture.
Hinojosa defines cultural appropriation as “taking a culture that isn’t yours and borrowing that culture. It’s taken from a negative standpoint, either in a comedic way to be funny or to marginalize or to demean someone, which continues to perpetuate a negative stereotype about a culture.”
Mahala Hughes, Activate ally and senior sociology major, said the photo prompted conversation in her classes and among her and her roommates. She said she hopes students can gather to discuss diversity in a healthy way.
“I think the goal was to point out the ways that racism and cultural appropriation manifests itself in ways we don’t even recognize,” Hughes said.
Hughes said she believes loving others as the body of Christ requires self-examination and humility.
“I more side with students on campus whose voices are often not heard or are often invalidated. I feel very passionate about echoing the voices that are often drowned out by the majority of students on campus,” Hughes said. “Siding with Activate in this specific incident was more about highlighting that they had something important to say rather than going back and agreeing with everything they have ever done.”
In a general sense, the Juan Direction costume is currently trending on social media with over 58,000 hashtags on Instagram and hundreds of pictures on Pinterest, the most popular of which has over 2,000 repins.
Kara Higa, Asian Pacific American Student Organization leader and junior English major, said she does not believe the students in the photo were aiming to be offensive.
“People dress up as different races all the time. It was based on SNL. They were trying to copy it to be funny,” Higa said.
She said she feels ethnic organizations should be open about what is considered offensive and what is considered humorous in light of different people’s sensitivity.
This issue has arisen on other campuses as well. Members of the staff at the University of Louisville, including the president, recently posted a picture eliciting controversy, as they wore sombreros and fake mustaches and held maracas.
Photos, articles and videos similar to these have been shared using the hashtag “my culture is not a costume,” seeking to raise awareness of the controversial nature of appropriating cultures.
Since Activate posted it, the photo had 105 likes, 106 comments (many with several replies) and 118 shares. The day after the photo was shared, Activate posted a status stating the photo had 28,616 views.
Senior journalism major and Activate ally Sydney Potter said she believes the purpose of Activate sharing the specific numbers was to show the “tangible evidence of wanting to broadcast this on a platform and get everyone talking about it and having a discussion.”
Potter said she did not believe Activate had malicious intentions when sharing the photo.
“[The students’] identities are not what we need to be focusing on. I don’t think Activate’s goal was to point the finger at them but to bring awareness that we cannot have this on campus just in general,” Potter said.
Potter said using Facebook as a platform was necessary, as she believes it brought the attention to APU administrators more quickly than it may have otherwise.
“I side with [Activate] as a whole because as a minority African-American woman. I understand exactly where they are coming from and being invalidated with our experiences. I do think we need to have more student advocacy on campus, and I love that they are bringing awareness to the problems of APU and that we need to address them,” Potter said.
After having been asked to comment multiple times, no representatives from Activate, Latin American Association or Student Government Association chose to individually comment.
None of the students in the photo have been officially identified by the university.