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Home · News

This White Maryland Teen Made Quite The Statement With His 'Culture Day' Costume

Don’t worry; it’s not what you think.
This White Maryland Teen Made Quite The Statement With His ‘Culture Day’ Costume
Twitter/@jotswa_welch
By Toni Akindele · Updated October 26, 2020

A Maryland teen decided to get political with his costume for his school’s annual Culture Day and it’s causing quite the uproar.

As originally reported by BuzzFeed, 17-year-old Silver Spring high school student Josh Welch dressed as a thief for Culture Day to make a statement about “white culture.” 

dressed like a thief for culture day bc white people steal everyone else's culture pic.twitter.com/XnY4juY9fh

— welch's grape juice (@jotswa_welch) October 5, 2016

“I consider myself a huge advocate for social justice, and I wanted to make a bold statement about ‘white culture,’” Welch told HuffPost. “I decided to use humor to get my point across, but I never imagined it [would] be this ubiquitous.”

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Welch says his costume overall was well received, but not everyone appreciated the critical commentary. He spoke openly with Buzzfeed about getting into “a tiff with a more conservative teacher about how I ‘shouldn’t make political statements with my costumes.’”

But the positive reactions, says Welch, definitely outweigh the negative.

As of today, Welch’s picture on twitter has received over 68,000 likes and has been retweeted of 38,000 times.

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