A Letter to the Community

To the Middlebury Community,

I want to take the opportunity to apologize for featuring a picture of myself wearing a culturally appropriative outfit in the sports section of The Middlebury Campus newspaper. The aforementioned photo in which I am wearing a sombrero has been featured in the weekly “Editor’s Picks” widget since I became an editor in September of 2014.

I studied abroad this past fall semester and therefore was not on campus to engage in the many conversations surrounding cultural appropriation—a topic with which I was completely unfamiliar until returning to Middlebury in January. In J-Term, I resumed my role as an editor and the photo was again added to the sports section above my name. Shortly after the first publication in February, it was brought to my attention that the photo was an example of cultural appropriation and was offensive to some members of our community.

In choosing the photo over a year ago, I never intended to offend anyone or contribute to an environment at Middlebury that is hostile to historically underrepresented groups. After the negative connotation of the photo was made clear to me, I immediately removed it from my portion of the sports section.

I am sincerely sorry to any member of the community that may have been negatively affected by the picture throughout the months that it appeared in print. In addition, I would like to apologize to anyone who took issue with the picture but felt uncomfortable bringing their opinion to the attention of myself or another member of the editorial board.

On that note, I am very thankful to both the students who reached out individually as well as the members of the groups who cosigned the Black Student Union’s letter for making me aware of the situation and allowing this important change to occur.

The recent discussion surrounding my photo has demonstrated the extraordinary capacity we have to make our community a better place if we approach issues of diversity and inclusion as an ongoing learning experience. In that effort, I am happy to speak with anyone who may have thoughts on this issue or anything I mentioned in this piece.

Sincerely,

Remo Plunkett