First Lady Melania Trump donned a white pith helmet during a safari in Kenya on Friday, which some claim is “evocative of colonialists,”.Reports said that the helmet was often worn by “European militaries in their colonies throughout Africa and in India,” and soon became a “popular sun hat” for European tourists in the 1930s.
When first lady Melania Trump first stepped out in front of the press Friday in Nairobi, Kenya, she was wearing an outfit suitable for the setting. She was at the David Sheldrick Wildlife Trust, ready to pet and bottle-feed baby elephants, who were prancing and playing with their caretakers on a large mound of red clay-like dirt, which is why the first lady’s khaki jodhpur pants tucked into tall, brown leather riding boots, and crisp, white tailored shirt seemed appropriate, if a bit of a gamble.
While most people likely wouldn’t want to pair thick, red-orange mud and splashing milk-drunk baby pachyderms with a white top, sartorially, Melania Trump is not most people.
But when she moved on to her next activity, a guided safari a half-hour later at the adjacent Nairobi National Park, the first lady had added an accessory to her get up: a pristine white pith helmet. It was very “Out of Africa,” an homage perhaps to the fabled 1985 Meryl Streep and Robert Redford film, in which Streep stars as Karen Blixen, an independent woman who takes over a farm in rural Kenya in the 1920s.
Matt Carotenuto, a historian at St. Lawrence University, compared wearing the hat to showing up to an “Alabama cotton farm in a confederate uniform.” “Her attire is a signal of her understanding of what Africa is in 2018,” Kim Yi, a politics professor at the University of California, Riverside,said. “It’s tired and it’s old and it’s inaccurate.” Trump, whose sartorial choices have gotten her in trouble in the past, is currently on her first extended international tour and will visit Egypt as her next and last stop.
Melania Trump wearing a pith helmet on her trip to "Africa" is more than a silly sartorial choice. It's a reflection of her outdated understanding of Africa. (Also, she was photographed in safari attire multiple times on this trip.) #FLOTUSinAfricaBingo https://t.co/aCnkOnPBF8
— kim yi dionne (she/her) (@dadakim) October 5, 2018
Wife of the wannabe dictator goes with the colonist look in Africa…https://t.co/g3EToO7Iw6
— Facts Do Matter (@WilDonnelly) October 5, 2018
Did Stephen Miller dress Melania for the Africa trip? pic.twitter.com/qXUaEcc4NO
— Gissur Simonarson 🇮🇸🏴 (@GissiSim) October 5, 2018
Here’s a short thread on the history and significance of the pith helmet (as worn by Melania Trump in Kenya today). Media correctly describes the pith helmet as a symbol of colonial rule. But why did colonizers start wearing them in the first place? 1/ pic.twitter.com/2geloBtgOi
— elliot ross (@elliot__ross) October 5, 2018
https://twitter.com/TirzaFury/status/1048280962264698880