Over the weekend, students tweeted concerns over alleged cultural appropriation occurring within the Alpha Delta Pi sorority, gaining attention from over four thousand users and students.
Sorority big-little reveal celebrations are in full swing this time of year. A The celebrations, many of which are themed, to kick off new relationship among sisters and are a long-standing Greek tradition.
Students took to Twitter Sept. 30 to express disproval of a select few Alpha Delta Pi sister groups’ chosen themes for their big-little reveals. The Twitter users called it cultural appropriation.
Joseph Nicholson, theater senior, tweeted, “Y’all… @txst we need to do better” along with screenshots taken from various Instagram accounts went viral Saturday afternoon.
Nicholson said his intentions were not to cause any messages of hate toward the women who posted the photos but to express his disproval of the images and encourage students to be more culturally inclusive.
Russell Boyd, public administration senior, said he believes the pictures were problematic because they used the culture of another community for purposes of amusement.
“It is disrespectful to the people that actually have those identities,” Boyd said. “We cannot take our identities off and put them back in the closet after the camera goes off. We wear them every day and feel the effects of them in all aspects of our lives.”
However, all students feel as though the choice in theme by some members of ADPi were problematic or rude.
Brandon King, public relations senior, said he believes the girls in the photos did not have malicious intentions or mean to offend anyone.
“I think that cultural appropriation is an issue, but I also think that nowadays it can so easily be seen that everything is cultural appropriation,” King said. “I don’t think it is accurate to say that these themes and costumes were cultural appropriation, it was just simple fun.”
Those who disproved of the photos stressed that cultural appropriation is not exclusively a Greek issue.
“I think the more we keep each other in check, the better we can all be,” Nicholson said.
Alpha Delta Pi and the PanHellenic Council were unreachable for comment.