In SMH news today, Urban Outfitters leads the competition for this year’s most racist corporate holiday party. Gawker got hold of the retailer’s invite for the grand event and this year, the theme seems to be Orientalist minstrelsy, with the invitation encouraging guests to put on their best in offensive regalia.
UO’s corporate powers-that-be invite employees to don their best “juttis, kurtas, turbans, saris, lehenga cholis and harem pants” for its holiday party, whose theme seems to stem around lampooning and exoticizing Desi culture because, why not? They wear colorful scarves and funny hats! Plus, minstrelsy is totally making a comeback in the U.S. so it’s a very on-trend theme.
Sigh. What’s it going to take for people to realize that ethnicity/culture is not a costume? Think pieces? A better education? A swift kick in the pants?
Urban Outfitters has been called out on numerous occasions for racially/ethnically insensitive wares. Lest we forget that time they labeled a completely random T-shirt colorway OBAMA/BLACK or when they sold all those fake Navajo products.
It seems like the folks at Urban Outfitters simply can’t help themselves but be as offensive as possible whenever the opportunity arises. You would think that after having to be consistently schooled in lessons of propriety and sensitivity, Urban Outfitters would know better than to pull something like this, but you know what they say about common sense. It just ain’t as common as you think.
[via Gawker]
