Colgate, I am calling us out.

What in the world are we doing bringing Snoop Dogg as the headliner for Spring Party Weekend when we are a campus struggling with a multitude of problems surrounding race, gender and sexuality? How does a musician with song titles such as “Can You Control Yo Hoe,” “Break A Bitch Til I Die,” “For All My Niggaz And Bitches,” “Gangbangin’ 101,” and “Gin And Juice” fit into Colgate’s plan for campus climate change and improvement?

The evening after Dr. Tricia Rose’s MLK keynote lecture, I sat reading the Maroon-News and found myself utterly perplexed and enraged by the inconsistency of our actions. Snoop Dogg is all “gangsta, pimp and ho.” He perpetuates the very racism and sexism that are at the root of our problems, and yet we have our checkbooks out to welcome an artist who is all about the “get mine” paradigm of life. We are clamoring to endorse an artist who has his own version of Girls Gone Wild; an artist who, from the stage on Whitnall Field, will rap his lyrics so plagued with “nigga” and “bitch” across a sea of mostly white faces to the echoing approval of Cutten Hall. Does anyone else think this may be a problem? Is anyone else concerned that we are willing to pay over $100,000 to entertain ourselves with an event that will feed the systems of prejudice that cast men of color as gangsters and women as sex objects when we proclaim to be fighting these very issues with funds and dedication during the work week? Seems counterproductive and, not to mention, a little hypocritical.

The CCLS provided us with invaluable and empirical insight into the multiple realities of student life, and now we collectively scoff at the voices we have heard. Let us bring an artist who promotes an unhealthy, commodified and misogynistic version of sexuality to a campus struggling with its own hook-up culture of relationships. Let us bring an artist to campus whose album artwork and videos feature a gendered imbalance of power by casting women in compromised and to-be-consumed positions to a campus struggling with alarmingly high rates of sexual harassment and assault. Let us bring an artist who is an icon of drug use to a campus struggling with its own drinking culture of excess and blackouts. Let us bring an artist who makes a lot of money by glorifying the highly racialized stereotype of gangster/pimp to a campus struggling with racism.

Yes, let us, and then let us wonder why our campus climate does not change.