All cultures appropriate one another

I read with great amusement the article in today’s paper about GU’s VP (Judi Biggs Garbuio) warning students not to appropriate Mexican culture on Cinco de Mayo (“Celebrate respectfully, GU asks its students,” May 5, 2018).

What garbage. She appears unaware that all cultures appropriate pieces of every culture they’ve come in contact with throughout history. It is the natural order of things and human nature. She is allowed free speech to write this inane garbage because the U.S. appropriated most of British common law. She is free to eat at Mexican restaurants because of cultural appropriation. In fact, if we didn’t appropriate other cultures, she’d have to come to work in a beaded dress and moccasins.

I hope that Gonzaga’s administration will put more effort into helping these apparently easily offended Mexican-American students (whoever they are) develop thicker skins to prepare for life off campus, and less time rewarding behavior as thin-skinned crybabies. They will be much better off later in life.

Of course, if cultural appropriation really is a problem at Gonzaga, I expect her to write a letter soon warning Mexican-American students not to wear baseball caps to parties. This politically correct claptrap cuts both ways.

Steve Temple

Sandpoint