In a unexpected outburst, Twitter flipped out on an 18 year old girl for wearing a traditional Chinese style dress to prom. All she did was choose to respectfully wear the dress to the event because she found it at a thrift store and fell in love with the dress, thinking it was beautiful. Now she is being accused of cultural appropriation and racism for the simple fact of wearing it. She didn't say anything disrespectful. This is not the racist prom proposal we saw a week or so ago of a young man asking another student ignorantly to prom with a racial statement. This young women's intention was not to offend but yet to honor and show off the fashion from this culture. Take a look at the dress that's causing so much controversy...Below is the original post.
All she posted was "prom" and yet that triggered everyone. I personally think the dress is beautiful, appropriate, and not disrespectful at all. However I'm not Chinese so I suppose my opinion is not taken into consideration. People are just over-reacting about this one. As someone who does love fashion, fashion is internationally worn. Do you not see models of all ethnicities in fashion shows wear various designs from various designers of different cultural backgrounds? Yes, the answer is yes. It's not like this young girl was carrying a take out box with chopsticks as her purse, okay, relax. I think it's a whole lot of nothing. I mean what are we doing? America is supposed to be a melting pot honoring and respecting multiple ethnicities and nationalities. If we aren't doing that, who are we anymore? All I see is us going back in history and ultimately going back into segregation. If we keep trying to stay within our own clubs, thinking only chinese can wear this or do that or only caucasians can wear that, we are only hurting ourselves. That's not disrespectful to our culture but if anything actually opening it up to others and honoring it.
The main kid who started bashing this young girl is from chinese decent but what he fails to realize is that in his profile picture he's wearing an Adidas cap, which by the way the last time I checked is a German designer...and yet you don't see German Americans out there flipping out on this dude being offended because he's not german like how dare him insult my culture like that by wearing a german designer. Give me a break. He has no grounds to make this statement of his when he himself is wearing clothes from another ethnicity! I mean really...
The good news is that a lot of other Twitter users are coming to the young lady's defense. They argue that there are a lot more important things to be concerned with and that we need to stop being so "sensitive". I agree, we've become too sensitive for our own good to the point where it's hurting our progression as a society and pushing us backwards. If we're not careful, we'll become a bunch of segregated societies within a society and we all know how well that worked out...
The young girl who wore this dress to prom, Keziah, the 18 year old from Utah, was completely taken back by this hatred or backlash against her. She simply claims that she was respecting Chinese culture, not trying to be disrespectful. She was certainly taken by surprise because she did not deliberately bash the culture or wear this dress to do that. Keziah tweeted out her responses to the outrage...
It's really unfortunate that not only do we now live in a sensitive, triggered society that's on edge about every little thing but, with that creates the decline of other things we once valued or cherished like free speech & comedy. It's getting to the point where people are afraid to say anything out of fear for being chastised, thus suppressing their own voice. We need to teach future generations that it's okay to voice your thoughts and have feelings. Be open-minded, respectful, and not take things so personally with every little thing. There is a lot of misinterpretation and miscommunication that is causing an angry, sensitive, defensive society where people are taking everything too literally and too personally. Add in the social media platform where now everyone has a global voice and we get a problem that gets amplified and they all feed off one another and hype each other up. Maybe that comes from a self centered millennial generation that was brought up having instant gratification and coddled. Maybe that's why everything is interpretated as an affront to them because they never were told "no" or never learned that the world outside your home is not as nice as your parents and never learned to get a thick skin. The parents swooped in to kiss every insult thrown their way or even worse fight their battles for them, that's the real problem. The current climate does not know how to take a verbal punch. It topples over like a house of cards anytime someone even throws out a joke.
It's scary, it's sad, and while I am personally a sensitive person, always have been, I've had to learn that yes it's okay to feel what I feel and embrace it but the key is to let it go and not air it out on social media. No one knows how to let go. It's not about discrediting your feelings. It's about expressing your feelings in healthy way and I don't think that includes having those feelings circulate on Twitter, Facebook, or another platform because they don't go away. Those feelings stay there and come to haunt you and the rest of us in this dark cloud of cyberspace. All you're doing is moving a problem from one space to another and that space effects all of us. It's pretty selfish really. What ever happened to the days of a personal cry fest in your bathroom or car without live streaming it on facebook? I truly hope this society realizes it's problems and fixes them before it's too late and we all become a bunch of cry babies who can't go out in public.
-Producer Lightning