Sooooo, this sucks.
Backstory is I own my own business and do a lot of subcontracted work for a big corporation with one of its headquarters in Dallas. I am flying down there this week for a meeting with the executives, higher end employees, and other contractors and venders like me. It is something that company does yearly and its kinda important to attend to be able to bid on jobs and get awarded contracts. So every year depending on what time of the year it is there is usually a culturally related party at the end where you are REQUIRED to dress up in costume. And yes, you guessed it, it is usually tone-deaf at the least and just plain flat racist at the most. Last year was a St Patricks day celebration with people dressing up as fighting drunk Irishmen and leprechauns and shit. This year its gonna be Cinco de Mayo themed. I am NOT looking forward to this, I hate doing this shit, I find it embarrassing and racist.
Despite this, if I want to get the contracts and keep my company busy I have to culturally appropriate another cultures celebration and dress my white ass up. I am not going to raise waves by protesting it because me raising waves will not do shit as my company is no where near big enough to actually cause change and instead I'll just lose business and have to lay off employees. Rather than raise waves I want to dress in a way that's respectful and not playing on stereotypes. Personally I would just rather dress nicely as I normally do as I feel that would be most respectful toward a cultural celebration I am not culturally part of but that wont fly. Am I thinking too hard about this. Should I just wear a Sombrero and a Poncho because that's what they are expecting and will actually probably be the least tone deaf outfit there.....LMAO
. Am I overthinking that these parties are kinda fucked up at least when it comes to being required to dress up in costume? Maybe I am overly sensitive to this stuff due to the circles I keep?
Backstory is I own my own business and do a lot of subcontracted work for a big corporation with one of its headquarters in Dallas. I am flying down there this week for a meeting with the executives, higher end employees, and other contractors and venders like me. It is something that company does yearly and its kinda important to attend to be able to bid on jobs and get awarded contracts. So every year depending on what time of the year it is there is usually a culturally related party at the end where you are REQUIRED to dress up in costume. And yes, you guessed it, it is usually tone-deaf at the least and just plain flat racist at the most. Last year was a St Patricks day celebration with people dressing up as fighting drunk Irishmen and leprechauns and shit. This year its gonna be Cinco de Mayo themed. I am NOT looking forward to this, I hate doing this shit, I find it embarrassing and racist.
Despite this, if I want to get the contracts and keep my company busy I have to culturally appropriate another cultures celebration and dress my white ass up. I am not going to raise waves by protesting it because me raising waves will not do shit as my company is no where near big enough to actually cause change and instead I'll just lose business and have to lay off employees. Rather than raise waves I want to dress in a way that's respectful and not playing on stereotypes. Personally I would just rather dress nicely as I normally do as I feel that would be most respectful toward a cultural celebration I am not culturally part of but that wont fly. Am I thinking too hard about this. Should I just wear a Sombrero and a Poncho because that's what they are expecting and will actually probably be the least tone deaf outfit there.....LMAO
(sarcastically laughing in irritation)