The student government at University of California–Davis apologized for bringing a sumo wrestling fat suit on campus after people freaked out that it was racist — and now, at least one offended student is saying that their apology just wasn’t enough for something so serious.
“My overall impression is that this conversation is in itself an expression of white supremacist anti-Asian structural racism,” cultural studies Ph.D. student Scott Tsuchitani said in an e-mail to the California Aggie, the school’s student newspaper.
“Asian Americans are treated as mute, hapless victims, devoid of agency, a.k.a. the ‘model minority’ stereotype,” Tsuchitani continued. “That is what I see being reinscribed by this conversation.”
According to the Aggie, the Associated Students of the University of California–Davis (ASUCD) had brought the suits on campus so kids could put them on and wrestle each other as a fun little activity at the school’s block party . . . but it didn’t really work out that way:
“The activity immediately drew criticism from members of the student body, who accused ASUCD of fat shaming and culturally appropriating Japanese culture,” the article states. “According to the students who raised this issue to ASUCD, the sumo suits trivialized Japanese culture and the history of Japanese rikishi or sumo wrestlers.”
#share#Now, the student who posted the “fat shaming” complaint on the event’s Facebook page also stated that he wanted “reparations payments” “as a Heavy-American” for having to have to endure such a suit being on campus. As Reason’s Robby Soave points out, the ridiculousness of this specific complaint suggests that this particular student was probably just “trolling,” but that in any case, “the difficulty one has distinguishing sincere leftist outrage from satire is telling.”
After all, the Aggie included the fat-shaming complaint in its article as an example of one student’s legitimate concern . . . apparently believing that it could feasibly be considered one. And there really is no doubt that the students who complained about cultural appropriation were in fact serious, to the point that they prompted this very serious apology on the student government’s Facebook page:
To the UC Davis Community
We’d like to apologize for any harm the “Sumo Suit” may have caused you all. This lapse in judgment is completely ASUCD’s fault and responsibility alone.
We are thankful to the student who courageously brought this issue to our attention. We appreciated their honesty and that they took the time to include the history of the Japanese sumo wrestlers (rikishi) and that this activity could be seen as a racially insensitive to Japanese culture.
This was an egregious oversight and it will hopefully not happen in the future.
If you have any questions, comments, or further concerns, please send an email to president@asucd.ucdavis.edu
Yes, the apology used the word “courageously” to refer to the student who protested the suits – which is the exact kind of attitude that encourages these insane complaints in the first place. After all, why bother to do anything actually brave if people are going to call you brave for whining? And why, after being praised for whining, would you stop whining after being issued a simple apology? Tsuchitani certainly didn’t:
#related#“It is pitiful that the ASUCD would pathologize the so-called victims as in need of treatment instead of reflecting more deeply on what is needed to address ASUCD’s own failure in this situation,” he said. “From my limited perspective, I would suggest that the foremost need for treatment might well be for cultural competency training for ASUCD itself.”
Really? Because “from my limited perspective,” I kind of feel like it might be more appropriate to require “how to exist as a regular human being competency training” for anyone who would actually suggest something so insane. But what do I know? After all, I’m not a cultural studies Ph.D. student . . .and we all know those kids know everything.
— Katherine Timpf is a reporter for National Review Online.
Update: The student who posted the “fat shaming” complaint has confirmed to Reason that he was, indeed, trolling.