Monday, October 29, 2007
Traditional Dress
I have made a change to our invitations. I have asked that for every event where we request business attire or black-tie, we also make an explicit note of “or traditional dress.” Such traditional dress might include, for example, a burka. Although some have suggested that anyone who prefers traditional dress will come so attired without being given permission to do so, I believe it is important to signal to them that they are welcome – and, more than that, to indicate to everyone that all are welcomed on equal terms. While I am quite assimilated as a native-born citizen, and I have never been accustomed to anything other than modern Western clothing, I have tried to remember how common it was for immigrants to be casually humiliated as well as to set a new ideal of inclusion.
