I’m close to two colleagues of mine, one male and one female; one Latino and one African-American. I’ve been teaching today in a mustard color Banana Republic t-shirt and blue jeans, and as I was walking back to the office from class just now, I passed these two colleagues in the hall. As we exchanged wishes for a good weekend, one said to the other "There goes Hugo in one of his ‘white boy teaching outfits.’"
The other laughed, and I joined in — but now I’m a bit bewildered as to what they meant. (Several students overheard, by the way.) I do tend to prefer a casual style (albeit a tight-fitting one), but I’m not at all sure what that has to do with race. Is it some sort of veiled reference to white male privilege, where a white guy can feel comfortable wearing anything while a professor of color needs more formal attire? Given that my dress style is often one more commonly associated with gay men, was there a homophobic slur in there as well?
Am I just over-thinking this? Should I not wear mustard?
Any thoughts?
It sounds to me like the opposite of “white privilege,” more along the lines of “white crappy taste in clothing.” Which, if you’re comfortable in your taste in clothing, should not bother you.
Is it some sort of veiled reference to white male privilege, where a white guy can feel comfortable wearing anything while a professor of color needs more formal attire?
Boom. You got it!
What Lubu said. Plus, dude, it’s Banana Republic. You don’t get much whiter than the GAP upscaled.
Actually, I think such a comment is just rude and inappropriate.
As a person of color, I’ve never felt a white male professor can feel comfortable wearing anything while a professor of color can’t. I attended UCLA, and it seemed all my professors there all dressed comfortably and however they wanted. I did notice the younger professors tended to be more casual (leaner, more fitted looks, more sportswear), while the older ones sometimes wore tweed blazers/sportscoats and nicer, woven blouses.
As for whether or not you should wear mustard, does the color look good on you or not? That’s all that matters. To learn about colors, I’d recommend both “Color Me Beautiful” by Carole Jackson and “Women of Color” by Darlene Mathis. (Carole Jackson also offers a men’s version, but the advice is the same.) Jackson’s book looks very 1980s, but her advice remains just as good today as it was years ago. Mathis’s book offers a more updated look and more pictures of people with different skin tones, but should be read in conjunction with Jackson’s book.
As for Banana Republic, I don’t consider Banana Republic to be “whiter” than any other mainstream store. Their website in the past has featured plenty of beautiful, sculpted African American and other models. I see all kinds of people shopping there. (I don’t shop there, but only because the clothes don’t fit me well.) IMHO, too many people get caught up in the marketing messages of stores. If the shirt fits, looks good, fits the occasion (and you can afford it, need it and want it), then buy it, wear it, and be happy. Don’t worry about what anyone else says, and ignore those who make rude and inappropriate comments.
[just laughing]
“Any thoughts?”
Yup…
1. Ditto barb’s [just laughing]
2. Ask them what they meant. You might get a good discussion out of it. Report back to us.
3. Are you a overly sensitive about white male privilege and homophobic slurs?
4. After having worn the cruel God-forsaken instrument of torture, suit & tie, for many years - though not for quite a while, I would have been grateful to be in a position to have the freedom to be insulted. (I know that sounds awkward, but my brain is too foggy now to rework it.)
5. Mustard? Ewwww! Ok, I have very little fashion sense myself…I’d just as soon have everyone wearing those drab grey pajama-like outfits you see from Communist China.
6. I just realized my comments probably look like some PowerPoint presentation with numbered bullets.
Actually, I think such a comment is just rude and inappropriate
Um, yeah. Are these people such buddies that they can insult you to your face and it’s just good fun?
Well, I don’t just wear Banana Republic. If I weren’t adverse to using the term for feminist reasons, I’d call myself a “label whore.” I just like BR t-shirts. (Not pants or dress shirts; I like a less conventional look for those.)
I didn’t feel insulted, particularly — which may be my fault. I’ve got a fairly thick skin about that sort of thing, and sometimes can’t figure out whether I’m being put down or not. And when it comes to my clothing choices, I regularly get snide comments from colleagues. I’m just not used to getting them with a racial angle.
That comment was exactly as proper as if you had said, “There goes Prof X in one of his ‘black boy teaching outfits.’” Neither more nor less. Crude racial remarks are not acceptable no matter what race the speaker. He is the one who should be upset at the encounter - not you.
The shirt with the pretty design pattern that you wore this Wednesday was quiet interesting. Also, Banana Republic, GAP, and Old Navy are basically one company trying to sell a board range of consumers. Unlike Abercrombie & Fitch, which is I think is the whitest, who targets a smaller audience. Also, in the case of the comment, both would come out hurt. The one who received the comment feels insulted and starts to read in on other comments. The one who gave the comment would face accusations of being racist and perceived as closed minded. In any case, I think some things are easier, or at least better, to forget, than to remember. You are probably associated with the gay man to an eye that doesn’t know better, but try as you may you are just a hetero-flamboyant dresser.
I am somewhere between La Lubu (and Lauren) and Sydney on this, meaning: It would have been better if they had left the racial angle out of it entirely, but I think that they didn’t do so implies that what they were commenting on was not so much your particular choice of outfits, but the notion that a white guy in t-shirt and jeans is said to be in “casual dress,” whereas a person of color does not always rate so benign an interpretation of similar attire.
To fall back on a cliche for a moment, I think it says more about them and their experiences than it does about you and your clothing choices.
Still think it was inappropriate to remark upon in a setting in which “several students” could overhear. I do also like YetAnotherRick’s second suggestion, to simply ask them what they meant (though I’ll pass on #3, because no, I don’t think you were being oversensitive. You seem to have broached the subject here in a very humble, just-askin’ kind of way.).
oh geez, y’all… lighten up. Is the progressive left really this humourless? I agree the joke probably does come out of the idea that people of color can’t dress as casually (you need a $200 Armani suit if you want to be taken seriously, according to that article in the NY Times magazine on “covering” a couple weeks back) but that doesn’t mean we can’t laugh about it. It doesn’t have to be questioned, that can really change the atmosphere. That’s what people hate about the whole politically correctness thing. You just gotta let some things go.
I mean, unless you’re really perturbed by this Hugo, or have some reason to think they said it with ulterior motives, but otherwise if these guys are your friends and you have no reason to believe they meant anything by it, you did ask if you were overthinking this. So in my opinion: yes! You’re overthinking this!
oh geez, y’all… lighten up. Is the progressive left really this humourless?
That’s not funny!
Reminds me of High School, when I was the only white guy on the Varsity Basketball Team. Pulled up one day for a weekend practice with my stereo blasting away, and one of the guys said, “Man! What kind of White Boy headbanging sheit is THAT?!”
I looked at him, grinned, and said, “Jimi Hendrix!”
Like stanton and YetAnotherRick said.
IMO this was an example of exactly the opposite of “white male privilege” - it was ‘people of color’ privilege, the privilege to make racially-charged remarks with impunity.
The remarks were uncalled for, however, in this day and age of rampant PC-ness, especially on campus, I suppose barb has the best advice, i.e., let it go and perhaps even laugh at it. After all, apparently the left (which seems to have a hegemony on college campuses) feels that only white males can be racists and that only they should have to endure racist/sexist slurs so doing anything other than laughing it off is probably ill-advised.
Question for all who saw no problem with the remarks: If you’d have overheard a couple of white male colleagues remark on a black guy wearing a full-out FUBU ensemble as the dude in the “ghetto outfit” would you have advised your black colleague to just laugh it off?
All this said, if you like your clothes don’t worry about it unless you think that it’s affecting your career.
Well, folks, I WAS “just askin’”, and as I said earlier, am definitely not offended. Thanks for all the feedback.
Oh, and Wonderperson (who saw me on Wednesday) — that whole outfit was from French Connection.
For the record, mustard yellow is generally not a color associated with gay men … since it is a color very few people have the complexion to pull off without looking jaundiced. And, just judging by your picture, I’d say you were a winter. Just sayin’. :) (people do need to lighten up a bit.)
Well, it’s a deep mustard — almost with rust undertones and a bit of what I think they call “Dundee orange”.
I’m usually a fall or a winter, but I’m willing to step outside the rules of the color books (I read ‘em back in the day) whenever I see something that strikes me. My clothing taste — like my music and my movies — is unpredictable even to myself, with the general rule that it needs to fit my frame and can’t ever, ever, be bulky.
it was ‘people of color’ privilege, the privilege to make racially-charged remarks with impunity.
Man, I wish I wasn’t a white male so I could have this glorious privilege.
lol… right on, dj!
Don’t worry DJW, I don’t think you are “white”– at least in essence!
…an ass backwards comment like yours.
cheers
Can I surrender my whiteness through apostasy?? Cool! I am now…oh, let’s say…purple.
Trust me, deep mustard is rarely anyone’s good color.
Hi Hugo. This comment is a bit late but as a former student as early as Spring 2005 I almost felt obligated to comment and say that you are very well respected (at least by our Hist7B class and also my own girlfriend!) for your dress code: plenty of comments about tight clothes and exposure of your arm tattoo by both sexes!! - despite the pathetic fashion police comments Keep Rocking because I am sensing envy disguised by a low-blow racial comment.
Anthony, thank you — that’s very kind. Two quibbles — I don’t think my clothes are THAT tight. And I don’t teach 7B; you took my 1B!
Cheers, my fellow Golden Bear!
I think racial issues in the US are a lot more nuanced than comments like these make them out to be:
I think that both of those would be true if we lived in a society where there was racial tension, but not racial inequality. Unfortunately, because we have profound racial (as well as other forms of) inequality, we have a series of profoundly asymetrical relationships: man/woman, white/black, queer/straight, etc.
In asymetrical relationships, things like insults, complaints, stereotypes, humor, etc. are affected by which side of the relationship they originate from.
In the example of an asymetrical parent/child relationship, there’s a big difference between “I Hate You!” coming from my 7 year-old to me, as opposed to that same statement coming from me to him. Because of the power imbalance, the first is rude and annoying. The second is threatening and potentially quite damaging.
That’s not a perfect analogy, so maybe this is better: if it had been one of Hugo’s students making that remark, it would have been rude and inappropriately personal. If, however, Hugo had said that to a student, it would have been seen as rude, inappropriately personal, and a threat. Hugo has tremendous power over his students. They have relatively very little over him. His (hypothetical) insults to them would not only cause distress, but could very well be a sign of impending punishment. A struggling student might even change the way he/she dresses in class if they thought that Hugo’s disapproval might affect his attitude towards them and thus their grade.
This is the same reason that a “Black Faculty Caucus” would be received very differently from a “White Faculty Caucus.” Shutting White people out of a “Black Faculty Caucus” allows a bunch of subalterns to talk without worrying what the hegemon will think. Shutting Black people out of a “White Faculty Caucus” (or golf club or Chamber of Commerce) means keeping them out of places where influential connections are made, where power is gained, and where decisions are made.
All of which is a roundabout way of saying that the insult is not exactly the same coming from different sides of the asymetric relationship. For White people, insults about their clothing coming from Black people put them in fear of, at worst, fashion snobbery and exclusion from certain social groups with which they may have little contact. For Black people, insults about their clothing coming from White people put them in fear of job descrimination, not being taken seriously by people with significant power over them, and even legal intimidation (i.e., have Hugo and his colleague in the FUBU outfit both go shopping at a jewelry store. See which one gets followed around by the security guard).
And that’s all, of course, contingent on a lot of things. Things would be different if Hugo were teaching at a historically Black college, and his senior colleagues, department head, and dean (all Black) were deriding his “white boy teaching outfits.” Though, still, the situation would not be a mirror image. Hugo would still enjoy vast privilege in society at large that even his Dean would not. The asymetrical relationship remains asymetrical. This is why Reagan’s “color-blind society” was such a sham: if gross imbalances based on color exist, we can’t just make them go away by pretending race doesn’t exist as a social construct. Saying that words, actions, and clothing all mean the same no matter the color of the person is ignoring the power differential, virtually always to the detriment of the people on the short end of the differential.
Whew. I do go on. Two more points, though: 1) Depending on Hugo’s relationship with his collegues the remark could be seen as anything from friendly teasing to a pointed barb. It seems like it felt like more of the latter, suggesting they either misjudged their relationship with Hugo or were deliberately trying to offend. 2)It does sound like a “white boy teaching outfit” (or in less loaded terminology, “a fashion statement that signifies a particular type of Whiteness, including qualities perceived as both advantageous and disadvantageous by those who construct their identity as non-White”).
If we take Bannana Republic as a GAP-equivalent, I’m reminded of the Seinfeld episode where Elaine and her new boyfriend, each of whom thought the other considered themselves a racial minority, discover that they both think of themselves as White:
It was a racist comment. I suggest you sue him and the school for creating a hostile work environment for whites to work in. Imagine if you had said - there goes X wearing his black guy thugwear.
I wear a jacket and tie when I teach. I don’t think it has anything to do with asserting white male privilege or investing in a white academic power structure. It does has something to do with this vague desire of mine to someday be an old fuddy-duddy and have everyone refer to me as Mr. Chips.
Arjet, I’ve heard your arguments before and I’m sorry but I just don’t buy them. We are no longer in the Jim Crow south, haven’t been for many decades, and the ‘power imbalances’ you describe not only for the most part don’t exist any longer, they’re not nearly as simplistic and clear-cut as you try to make them out to be. To me arguments like yours sound like weak excuses for racism and sexism against white males by all other segments of society. And if you think that you’re going to eliminate racism and sexism by excusing and in some cases condoning racism and sexism - especially against the minority/majority (white women being majority/majority) - then you’re not thinking clearly at all.
This type of thing can only make the situation worse, not better.
First….your style is only considered to be associated with gay men in this country…if you were in London, for instance, no one would even think about it. Second, I have a question for you….have you thought about asking them what the meant? Sometimes I find that when I go out on a limb to ask, what may seem to be a silly question, I get a connection with the person like I’ve never had before.
side note: your style is great….don’t change
Thanks, Alexandra… I will ask, perhaps today!
I’m late to this thread…but I think this is being over-thought. I’m one of those people who dresses and looks very ‘white’…and my friends giggle about how incredibly out of place I am saying anything ’slang-like’ or in some social situations (like when I actually figured out what fo’ shizzle meant, and tried to explain how weird I found that whole phrase…just trying to pronounce fo’ shizzle was really kind of embarassing, even amung my also-very-white roommates…I can’t even figure out a way to type that that doesn’t look utterly square). Despite all the teasing I get for being ‘really white’ it doesn’t seem to be a hostile or political thing. Just…I’m ‘white’ in that stereotype ’square’ way, and they think its funny, probably especially because I have such a diverse social group. So I would think they were just implying that you looked ‘white’ in the way that it means ’straight-laced,’ or even ’suburban,’ you know? Seems like the clothes you describe would fit into the ‘totally white’ category…they were probably just meaning to tease you about how stereotypical ‘white-boy’ it looked. Like how I tease my mom about her ‘Jewish Lady’ purse that’s shiny gold and bigger than her torso. :-)
We’re Jewish, by the way…just mentioning so that ‘Jewish Lady purse’ thing doesn’t sound as awful.
I never thought I’d see a discussion between 20 or so people about a guy’s clothes and the comments that ensued.