I don’t want to talk about Lil Dicky. I don’t want to talk about his commercialized racism, his winking gimmicks or his invitation to our campus. I don’t want to talk about how he is the post-modern manifestation of white privilege gone amok refusing to believe that he is not allowed to have just. what. he. wants. NOW.

I really want to talk about Young the Giant, but…

…Lil Dicky released a song earlier this month called “Freaky Friday” where he uses a reductive and stereotypical portrayal of Asian mysticism in order to switch bodies with Chris Brown so that he can do “awesome things” like dance, talk to women and say racial slurs. Yes, Lil Dicky wrote an entire f—ing song just so he could *wink wink, nudge nudge* Chris Brown into saying a racial slur for him. Because the history of that word is just an inconvenience for a man named after his own genitalia.

And yet, the song and Lil Dicky isn’t even the most eye-rollingly problematic part of this narrative. The Virginia Tech women’s lacrosse team got caught on camera singing a line containing a repeated racial slur at the top of their lily white, privileged lungs.

Hopefully those girls have learned from the cascade of backlash thrown their way, but I just can’t help but think in response: “Wow, this is the type of guy our students were excited to bring. These

are really the type of people at this school. Too rich to think past their own nose white kids who just wanna know why dropping the hard-r isn’t a reasonable compromise.”

So here’s one last note on Lil Dicky: As long as we are going to make WILD our biggest day of the semester; as long as we are going to hype up the reveal as much as the event; and as long as this semesterly concert is one of the first things mentioned on every single campus tour — we’re going to have to start treating it more seriously. Bringing progressive, underappreciated artists rather than the dude with the most YouTube clicks creates

a university environment that does more than pay lip service to the idea of promoting inclusion and diversity. Each time an institution as powerful as Washington University supports and pays for Lil Dicky’s brand of gimmicky racism, we take another step back toward our disgusting racist past and not toward any meaningful sense of reparations.

Now that that’s done: Kudos to new the Social Programming Board for bringing Young the Giant. You brought a band that has proven to put on a good show (Loufest, 2015), is fronted by a man of Indian descent, and DOESN’T USE BULLS— CULTURE APPROPRIATION AS THE PUNCHLINE TO A S— JOKE. I lied about not wanting to talk about Lil Dicky, but now I’m done.