Because identity politics is spreading like wildfire not just on college campuses, but in the greater society (and here I mean the U.S. and the U.K.), we’re now faced with something that hasn’t happened in previous Halloweens: the consideration of whether costumes people wear are offensive. This can be a useful discussion to have, but it may be going overboard.
This issue isn’t that new, for it’s happened previously with theme parties at colleges, where students dressing in ethnic costumes, or even in blackface, have faced opprobrium and punishment from their universities. Here at my own school, students have fought over whether it was appropriate to dress as Mexicans (with sombreros) or as Mexican gangsters.
Clearly, all of these costumes are legal under the First Amendment (unless they’re calculated to elicit violence), but they’re not “free speech” in the way I conceive it, for they’re not making a clear statement that can be debated. So the issue comes down to whether they’re offensive, bigoted, or convey invidious stereotypes. And that raises a further issue: who makes that judgment and how many people have to be offended before it’s considered wrong.
That’s the issue discussed in an article in today’s New York Times, “Halloween costume correctness on campus: Feel free to be you, but not me.” And here’s one example: the President of the University of Louisville had a Halloween party in which some people (including him!) dressed in sombreros and fake moustaches. Here’s the photo (the president later apologized for offending the school’s Hispanic students):
Those costumes seem over the top to me, and even though Mexicans themselves wear sombreros (think of how mariachi bands dress), it’s deemed bigoted. I’m not sure about that, but it does present a national stereotype, and to me this is borderline bad behavior. And if these people wore blackface, that’s surely not okay, even if they’re emulating a famous black person like, say, Kanye West. Such a costume simply stirs up bad feelings because, historically, blackface was used to mock blacks, and it’s best not to participate in that history.
But what about other costumes? Indian costumes, which people wore when I’m a kid, are deemed offensive because they stereotype Native Americans, but couldn’t you see it as paying homage to them, wearing the often striking clothes that the natives did? What about dressing as a geisha? That, too, is seen as bad (indeed, you can’t even wear a karate outfit), but geisha dress is simply lovely.
Sometimes I wear Indian clothes: a kurta pajama with tight white cotton pants and a long shirt (cotton or silk), and I wear them to work, to Indian music concerts, and especially in India, where the climate makes such clothing much more comfortable than Western clothes. I have never been faulted for “cultural appropriation” by Indians or anyone else, but am still I guilty of it? Where is the line? When does appreciation of a culture become mocking of a culture? Is it offensive for white people to wear dreadlocks? I can’t force myself to think that, because dreadlocks look really nice on some people who aren’t black, and they’re worn because of that. (And is it appropriation for non-Jamaican blacks to have dreadlocks?)
Ideally, in a multicultural society, cultures would take the best from other cultures, including food, dress, hair, and so on. Is that “cultural appropriation” or “cultural appreciation“?
There are many questions. If one Indian person objects to my wearing kurta pamaja, does that mean I should stop? How many people must be offended before you’re really guilty of being bigoted? And do the offended always get to decide? This is the question I’m asking readers, and a question brought up by the Times. Most people seem to think that if anyone thinks your “cultural appropriation” is inappropriate, you shouldn’t do it. I’ve just read an editorial in The Chicago Maroon, our student newspaper, which expresses that view:
This Halloween we would like to emphasize that no one’s culture is a costume. It is not one person’s place to represent another historically marginalized group through their outfit.
. . . We urge all members of the campus community to think critically about the costumes they choose to wear on Halloween, and by extension, how individual actions affect a campus climate. Not only should students choose respectful costumes, but they should also speak up if a friend opts to wear an offensive one. We all have the responsibility to speak up in the face of insensitive and inappropriate actions, and must continue to work towards a campus climate that is welcoming to all members of the community.
But what is a “respectful” versus a “disrespectful” costume? Who decides? Are Arabs “historically marginalized”, so that dressing up as a Bedouin or a Saudi Prince is disrespectful? What about the Japanese—is a samurai costume offensive? Clearly, the students themselves, immersed in an identity-politics culture, prefer to play it safe:
“If there’s a gray line, it’s always best to stay away from it,” said Mitchell Chen, 21, a microbiology major and director of diversity efforts at the Associated Students of the University of Washington. The university emailed to all students this week a six-minute video of what not to do for Halloween.
. . . Some schools advise that borrowing from any culture is demeaning and insulting unless the wearer is a part of that culture. In other words, do not put on a karate outfit with a black belt, the University of Washington advised in the video it sent to students, unless you actually earned that belt.
Here’s that six-minute video:
While I agree with much of this, including the bad taste of pretending to be a mental patient or of wearing blackface, I don’t agree with all of it. The notion that wearing aloha shirts misrepresents Pacific Island culture, for instance, I find deeply misleading. These weren’t traditional Polynesian dress (although the patterns can be traditional), and are worn by almost everyone on Hawaii now, including businessmen on Fridays. I will continue to wear mine, as they’re colorful and lovely. And really, does dressing up as a geisha stereotype all Japanese women as geishas? I don’t think so. And I think the prohibition of martial-arts costumes is an example of hypersensitivity.
I will end here, asking readers if they agree with the video and the notion that any cultural appropriation, through costumes or things like wearing dreadlocks, is wrong. My own view, which is evolving, right now agrees with the statement of John Leo:
While some costumes are clearly offensive to all, not everyone agrees where the boundaries should lie. John Leo, who edits an online magazine about higher education for the Manhattan Institute, a conservative research group, characterized some of the colleges’ guidelines as “hypersensitivity to rules.”
“If you deal directly in stereotypes, you’re bound to irritate people,” Mr. Leo said. “But a lot of what passes for appropriation is simply normal costuming for Halloween, and I think that there’s a lot of oversensitivity to it. If it doesn’t seem mean or exploitative, I don’t see what the problem is.”
Right now hypersensitivity is spreading, and it behooves us to consider how much of it is warranted, and how much is simply a way for students to claim a special identity that nobody can share.
h/t: Jon
From what I understand, if you are white, your culture cannot be appropriated, at all, since whites are always the dominant culture.
That would include indigenous people such as the Sami.
Which makes dressing up like stereotypical nerds, dude-bros, cowboys, tourists, babushkas, Vanilla Ice, and serial killers totally appropriate, whereas wearing Sami garb will get you accused of stealing Native American culture by culturally illiterate liberals.
This usually seems to be the case. However a friend of mine circulated this Conscientious Costumes message and it extends the umbrella of offensive even to such things as “sexy cop/nurse/firefighter”. Occupations are identity too, apparently. If you take that seriously, dressing as a stereotypical computer programmer or scientist would be verboten too. As someone in that category I can’t say that I love it when my profession (and related fields) are depicted in unflattering “nerd” terms, but at the same time there is something fun about taking on fake identities, even fake absurd or wildly untrue identities. I would feel the world was a little smaller if people didn’t feel free to do so, even if sometimes groups I’m a part of are the butt of someone’s joke (hell, there are whole popular TV series predicated on making people in my profession the butt of jokes… so the last place I’d start is costumes).
Next Halloween (‘Neewollah,” per the movie “Picnic”) thinking of dressing up as a hedge fund manager.
It’s just weird and uncomfortable when bedroom role play fetish costumes are made for and marketed to little girls though.
If I showed up to a Halloween party dressed as I am now, and claimed to be coming dressed as a homosexual, would that be considered offensive?
(By writing this comment, have I expropriated the Phoenician alphabet? By pretending to be literate at all, am I expropriating Sumerian culture?)
Not to mention that just celebrating Halloween alone is inherently offensive to Christians. Could everyone please stop being so damn offensive!
The Christians appropriated it from pagans!!!
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I have never met any Christians that are offended by celebrating Halloween or dressing up for Halloween. Do you hang with Amish people or something?
The Sami are aboriginal SvecoFinnWegians, I think.
With no dissing of real Wegies. I dinner fancy a kiss.
Struggling with the replacement phone. Seems that my fingers got fatter.
Only a Glaswegian would get that crack!
FWIW, In spite of Cultural Appropriation, I think that Samuel L Jackson looks pretty cool in a kilt. He plays a mean game of golf, too (NSFW, turn the volume down).
Culture and race are two completely different things, making the wearing of a sombrero much different from wearing blackface.
We protect skin color and gender and sexual orientation because they are inseparable parts of people, but no one should be attached to “their culture” in this way. That is conservatism at it’s core. Everyone is born to create new relevant culture not follow the old ones. No one is the culture they were born into. I do not protect or have any attachment to the culture of my ancestors because there are a great deal of things wrong with my ancestors culture, even my parents culture. Culture is not static. It is ever evolving and just like you should not be born with a religion you should not be born with a culture. We are all participants in an ever evolving global culture that should have nothing to do with our ethnic or national heritage. Culture is about what exists around you right now, not what existed around your ancestors back then.
If you dress like a Mexican in a celebratory manor and you are not looking down on them by doing so, then you are not a racist and don’t let anyone tell you that you are. People who treat culture like skin color have some waking up to do.
I am standing by for someone to tell me, an Anglo, that I can no longer sing in public, “Cielito Lindo.”
You may sing it, but while you are singing it you may not look like you think it’s cute. I think that’s how it works.
May I think (to quote George Carlin) it is “moderately neato”?
I think that’s a micro-aggression but I’m not sure.
Well said. Bravo!
I mostly agree that cultural stereotypes should not necessarily be off-limits as costumes, done in a celebratory (rather than mean) way. Not sure about your last paragraph. There are certainly racists who will use the opportunity to subtly insult different ethnic groups.
This seems to me an instance where we should look at individual cases in context, err on the side of caution before being offended, but still be willing to speak out (i.e., counter bad speech with good speech) against someone who seems to be using the holiday to offend people.
IMO the mariachi example, above, is a bit complex. *A* mariachi costume (as in, one) doesn’t seem that offensive to me because actual mariachi costumes are supposed to be over the top – color and ostentation is kind of the whole point. Which makes it a good choice for someone for Halloween. And dressing as the three amigos or (getting a bit away from the mariachi but sticking with the hat) one of the extras from Sierra Madre – who could fault that? OTOH, seeing 20 old white guys coordinate like that, along with some dressing in the conservative head coverings of Spanish women, is offensive (to me) because that sort of group action seems to be mocking the culture. This communicates to me not “lets be a giant coordinated mariachi band,” but rather “lets dress like crazy mexicans” Not good at all.
I agree, it should be case by case. And intent is everything. Hurt feelings are irrelevant.
If “culture” is an invalid category, how can its appropriation ever be objectively insulting or mean? I think you’re oversimplifying by ignoring the extent to which culture is bound up with ethnicity. It is only (well, usually) when a member of the ethnic group being depicted doesn’t find the depiction “celebratory” — finds it, instead, in some way demeaning or rude — that trouble ensues. How do you adjudicate the question then? That’s the gnarly issue.
I didn’t say that culture is an invalid category. It’s just not in the same category as race, ethnicity, and gender which are not your choice and innocuous to others. Culture and religion however are choices, or at least they should be, and the culture you choose to live is not innocuous to others around you. Your religion and cultural beliefs do affect others, unlike your ethnicity, gender and sexual orientation. This is why culture is on the table for lampooning.
You are right that culture is largely tied to ethnicity in today’s world. The point I am making is that it should no longer be that way. A person’s culture in today’s world should not be tied to their ethnicity or blood lineage but to their surroundings both locally and globally. IMO.
Yes!!!
I have to say I agree about the the mexican sombrero outfit. Would mexicans really object to this?
It’s not really a negative stereotype and mexicans AFAIK are not a marginalised group.
I think in that picture you could even say the males should be offended because the females are wearing fake moustaches!
If people are really so insecure about their (cultural) identity then that’s their problem. I’m dutch and don’t mind for one minute if people dress up in stereotypical dutch wooden shoes and farmer outfits with a big block of cheese on their head or whatever, even if they’re not actually dutch. Why should that offend me? The next thing will be to ban all negative references to “dutch” in the english language (of which there are many) because they offend me, but then that would mean I can’t make belgian or german jokes anymore either. I do thingk the that the dutch blackface “Zwarte Piet” is culturully insensitive and borderline racist though but it seems that this discussion is not over yet over here and the traditionalists don’t want to give it up because “tradition!”
I remember how here in the U.S. splitting the cost of going out on a date was described as “going Dutch.” Anything wrong with using that term?
As an American living in the Netherlands, it’s been my experience that the Dutch are not offended by the phrase “going Dutch” and tend to joke about the cultural penchant for frugality in a self-deprecating manner.
On the other hand, using “Jew” as a verb (“he Jewed me down to five dollars”) is very offensive.
Yes, I frequently heard that growing up in E. Tennessee. A high school chum of mine liked to say that. (But I dare say a bunch of those good folks would claim not to know that they had said anything wrong by saying that.) I was tempted to ask him if it were rather more accurate to say that he had (Southern) “Baptisted” or “christianed” “down” the price.
I certainly don’t think there’s anything wrong with it. Though the underlying “assumption” of the phrase tends to be that dutch people are stingy with money I guess (as on a date the man would be “supposed to” pay the bill, but in the Netherlands we would split the bill instead) so it could be seen as offensive for reinforcing a national sterotype of dutch people. But I would consider it very silly to get worked up or even be offended by something like that. Same for these costumes… unless it’s blackface or perhaps the traditional native-american headgear.
Seems to me those gaudy sombreros are often sold by Mexicans themselves as gringo bait. I’d think a lot of them would find that pic of the dorky (said affectionately) USians decked out like that hilarious.
” . . . that pic of the dorky (said affectionately) USians decked out like that hilarious.”
Just congenially curious – what would non-dorky citizens/natives, of whatever country, look like? What if it were a group of college football players? Would they look less dorky? Would they look “jocky”?
Now that you mention it, I think just about anyone so dressed would look dorky, and that’s maybe why there’s no offense in such a get-up; the joke’s on the wearers, not the source material.
I’m sure none of us deny that there is such a thing as cruel humor and satirization, and it’s definitely a value judgment as to where the line is drawn, but dealing with continua is part of being a grown-up.
(We probably all have an “inner dork” anyway, and I think we tend to like those who let theirs show occasionally.)
That’s it, that’s exactly how we (Mexicans) feel, that is not offensive at all, and actually trying to include Mexicans in all that “offensiveness” is stupid, we are not vulnerable and we laugh at ourselves all the time… for god’s sake, we use the same outfit when the Mexican football team plays…
Well, nice to have the authentic seal of approval! 🙂
“…we laugh at ourselves all the time…” –I think you’ve hit on the key to it all right there. (Where “it all” means something like “amicably coexisting.” Or maybe just, “enjoying life!”)
Somehow I don’t envision the SJW-types of the world doing much of that, if at all.
If the U Louisville group were dressed as mariachis, in white shirts with charro-style suits, maybe they wouldn’t have attracted the negative attention (though some people can always find an excuse to be offended, it seems). The population of my city is predominantly (60-65%) Hispanic (mostly Mexican-American), and I doubt anyone would be offended by a mariachi costume at Halloween, even if worn by an Anglo. The people in the photo, however, are dressed more like stereotypical Mexicans in a Speedy Gonzales cartoon, where the men in particular are portrayed as lazy, womanizing, mustachioed, and intellectually slow. Mariachi is a folk music tradition from a region of Mexico, which is beloved by many people, many of whom have no Mexican ancestry – reflecting that tradition at Halloween shouldn’t be a problem. Grabbing a serape, a cheap touristy sombrero, and a fake mustache for a “Mexican” Halloween costume seems different somehow and kind of careless. I like creating a costume and dressing up at Halloween, and kids that come by trick-or-treating seem to like it when the adults wear costumes too … but my bias is that adults should make at least a little effort with their costumes.
Hmm, maybe this explains the Christian disdain for Halloween. All the ghosts and undead characters are considered cultural thefts of the world’s second known zombie?
On a different note, I’m not sure the notion of appropriate really has any relationship to the celebration of Halloween 😉
Which is odd because Halloween is the Christian appropriation of pagan celebrations.
Yeah, but pagans don’t have an effective lobbying arm these days, probably haven’t since building Stonehenge.
The pagans appropriated Stonehenge from the space aliens that built it!
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It is of course much nicer than the wood or dirt Henges
From the video: “Cultural appropriation is when you take something from a culture that isnt yours, and use it for your own purposes”.
Ah, I get it now.. So if someone isnt part of the culture that invented, say, antibiotics (or lightbulbs, or air conditioning, or internet, or smartphones, etc etc) then they shouldnt use it.
Gotcha.
Designing or using a car is offensive if you are not German. Or for that matter using most forms of the Internal Combustion Engine. I also know I am going to have to lecture a ton of kids on how to properly think. I mean how dare kids wear TMNT or Tigger or any other custom depicting an that is stealing their culture.
+1
So…does this mean nobody is allowed to enjoy food that is not from their culture? Is Chinese, Indian, and Mexican food now off limits if you don’t fall into one of these ethnic groups?
Is it that I myself am not allowed to buy the ingredients and prepare that food at home?
Am I allowed to go to a place of public accommodation (restaurant, festival, carnival, fund raiser) and BUY (and eat) that food?
Is, e.g., a person of Laotian ancestry allowed to wear traditional attire of Cambodian culture?
I saw two or three weeks ago (BBC) a native American complaining about north-Europeans coming to the Indian reservation singing native American songs often better than they do.
I can understand why they don’t like it.
Seems to me a big difference between adopting a style of dress or a hair style because you like it or it’s convenient and dressing up as someone from a different culture as a party costume. I can see how Native Americans or Japanese people or Mexicans might see the latter as making them out to be figures of fun. I would imagine that most folk who wear such costumes aren’t doing it to be intentionally offensive, but that doesn’t necessarily make it OK. Still, I think the numbers are important. If most Mexicans generally couldn’t care less about silly Mexican costumes then that makes them less of a problem.
An interesting issue, which I thought was cleverly addressed on South Park, when Cartman dressed up as Hitler for Hallowe’en and was sent for sensitivity training.
A few other thoughts to address:
– I’ve often seen guys dress up as girls on Hallowe’en (so well in fact that they’ve been hit on by other guys). Is that an issue for feminists, homosexuals, cross-dressers, or trans?
– What if a black person dressed up in backface? (Either being Al Jolson, or as a statement?)
Personally I think it’s Hallowe’en, and you get to dress up as you deem appropriate. With people being dressed up as monsters, serial killers, corpses, politicians, etc. and that isn’t considered offensive, yet playing a stereotype is, seems a little strange. I think the issue is intent. If you are dressing up as a cowboy, just for fun, then you shouldn’t be held accountable to anyone who finds that offensive because of the mistreatment of Native Americans. On the other hand, if you intend to dress up in a KKK outfit, then you should probably stick to attending parties where that is considered suitable attire (unfortunately of which there are many I am sure).
If you are at a university party, wearing a costume you think is fine and another finds offensive, then you have an opportunity for dialogue to discuss if either one of you has a good case for their point of view or simply looking to cause/take offense.
Sounds like it could get to be an issue later that Halloween night for certain cis-gendered heteronormative males … 🙂
My daughter dressed as Alice in Wonderland very convincingly a couple of years before she came out as transgender and started presenting as female. She’d been wearing her hair long for a couple of years before that as a young man (her female schoolfriend were envious!).
But I’m sure she wouldn’t say that only pre-out transgender people should be able to cross-dress.
I’m sure it’s an issue for some “feminists” though.
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This seems to be a nettlesome issue for feminists. The last time I waded into the thicket to see what was happening, it seemed the “radical” feminists — the ones who want to tear down the patriarchy — weren’t accepting of transgendered women. Liberal feminists generally were, but they were hardly univocal on the issue.
Good for your daughter, btw.
“serial killers”
I think that’s an interesting one. Hannibal Lector or Freddie … probably OK. Harold Shipman or Peter Sutcliffe (sorry, both UK examples) … not so much. Jack the Ripper … moot.
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There is a super easy fix to this issue. Unless you are a child, do not dress up for Halloween. Its infantile and demeaning in a general sense so don’t do it. You most likely had your chance to be a kid when you were a kid so now maybe we all could grow up and leave the children to it. Other than that wear what you want. I wear nothing but Hawaiian shirts in summer and have no doubt I am offensive looking but thats not really related to cultural appropriation.
While I don’t feel a desire to dress up myself, I think retreating from the controversy just gives those people another undeserved victory. And I’d bet a lot of money that they won’t stop there; they’ll find yet another area of life to regulate.
I think its kind of sad that you put make-believe and masquerade in the realm of childhood things. I certainly don’t run around in costume all the time but I do think adults acting whimsical on occasion is a fine thing.
So no, I disagree with your fix.
It’s infantile and demeaning for adults to wear costumes? Seriously? What’s wrong with adults enjoying a bit of silliness here and there?
Irony is dead isn’t it? I wish someone had told me. I think I will dress up as Bertrand Russell and drink Scotch until I fall asleep. But not before I take all the good chocolate out of our son’s treat bag. There shall be no KitKat come the morrow.
Magnum PI appropriation!
Jimmy Buffett and the cast of “From Here to Eternity” might grievance your ass, too!
Seriously? Jeez, I’ve had a lot of fun at costume parties.
And you can always go to Comicons for Hallowe’en any time of the year!
I read the issue as a learning process, and that one should take these issues one at a time. The issue of wearing blackface is largely settled, and not likely to be done without widespread disapproval. Depictions of American Indians is an ongoing evolution.
We depict American Indians in several sports teams as mascots, using a mixture of historical costume and Hollywood parody. The old University of Illinois mascot (my alma mater) was very much a mixture of history and Hollywood parody, and it was a matter of much discussion the whole time that I was there. The whole half-time display with the mascot, a student wearing Sioux Indian chief regalia plus dramatic, straight-outa-Hollywood-esque music, and the crowd doing tomahawk chops, was clearly meant to be dramatic, honoring, crowd stirring, but also simplistic so that the masses could understand it and get all pumped up for the 2nd half. I know that its development over the decades was guided by various local Indian representatives, so it was not entirely without some credible endorsement.
But the calls that it was a stereotype from other Indian groups grew louder, and those views were worth listening to. It has been stopped as of some years ago.
Isn’t there the argument that wearing the traditional feathered headdress is making a false claim about one’s prowess as a warrior or position in society, much as undeservedly wearing a karate-gi with a black belt or a Purple Heart would be disingenuous and insulting to those who had trained or suffered for the right to wear it.
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* ?
Exactly! Those are symbols of achievement and of position that mean a lot to specific groups. How would we feel if people could just walk into a toy store and buy crowns and scepters? Or go out on Halloween with a lab coat and stethoscope. Doctors are important people who save lives yet some find it appropriate to appropriate their garb and make a mockery of their studies and dedication. Costumes of all kind should be banned.
Who is best positioned to inform one whether a given sartorial ensemble should be banned?
The Thought Police arm of SJWs?
I’m pretty sure Jason’s post is sarcastic. I certainly hope so, anyway.
It was.
Me too.
As a certain femme fatale Jezebel, refulgent in her wiles and blandishments, once said to unsuspecting me in another context, “Email is SO one-dimensional.”
Maybe for Halloween I’ll just wear some out-of-fashion clothes, and when Im asked what Im supposed to be, I’ll say Im an American from back when people werent looking for an excuse to be offended.
True story this Friday:
It was dress up for Hallowe’en day at my school. I wore an old (90’s probably) golf shirt that was dyed about one quarter yellow, one quarter red and the other half (all vertical) dark blue that could be mistaken for black.
I randomly chose it as a shirt to wear that morning as I actually still wear this shirt occasionally and used to as regular attire all the time in the 90’s. I never realized I was wearing a costume (since I wasn’t).
At school, one boy asked me if I was the German flag.
Another two girls asked me what my costume was. I asked for clarification -“Do you mean what will I wear tonight while handing out candy?” They said, “No, right now — what you are wearing now.” I said “Uh just my clothes really.”
They said “Oh. We thought you were a bowler.”
I said “Nope – just my sense of style.”
Who are the fashion Movers and Shakers before whom one must genuflect?
I know Bill Maher is most dismissive of sweater vests.
I think a sweater vest with a picture of Bill Maher on it would be a good starting point for a Halloween costume.
It’s never offensive. If you take offense at something, it is your fault and your problem, no one can offend you, it is an active proposition on the part of the offended. Way too many people are offended by things today, they need to grow the hell up and get over themselves.
People can never be offensive on purpose?
Sure, you can say things that you hope will offend people, that’s what trolls do every day, but the actual offense, the actual feeling that an individual feels, all of that is entirely on the individual. They are the ones who are oversensitive to the material. No one can force you to be offended, you do that to yourself.
Right, so it’s always the fault of the target of the offence for being too sensitive and never the fault of the offender for being insensitive, or downright hateful? People should just put up with racist, sexist, or homophobic (etc.) remarks/actions because if they have a problem with it then that’s down to an inadequacy on their part?
Yup. You can call me all the names you want, I don’t care, it doesn’t bother me a bit. Knock yourself out. Anyone who takes offense at something is being overly emotional and overly sensitive.
And what about people it does bother? What about people who are traumatised or held back by the abuse they receive? If you’re not part of an oppressed group, you might feel differently if you were. If you really think it’s for the victims of racist abuse, say, just to grow a thicker skin, then I think you need to try to be a bit more empathetic.
That’s their problem. Oversensitive people need to get over it. They do so by being exposed to criticism. Of course, there are tons of people on the far left who are taking offense for other people that they think ought to feel it, so the whole thing is really ridiculous.
Know what you could be for Halloween this year?
A conceptual art piece. Just put on a nametag: “reification of white resentment”
Good to know you’re still impervious to offense!
Glad to know you’re incapable of rational thought.
Look, bro, it’s one thing to say that no costume, no matter how offensive, should be illegal; it’s another to tell people they can’t be offended by blatantly offensive shit.
I’m with you all the way on the part of the above sentence to the left of the semi-colon. Can’t make the leap with you to the right.
Is there nothing for you so vile that rational people might reasonably take offense at it? What if sports teams had mascots like “the Mick” (a guy staggering around with a busted, veiny nose and pints of “Wild Irish Rose” stuffed in his pockets); or “the Dago” (in a shiny gangster suit, greased back hair, and a pistol tucked in his belt); or “the Jew” (Hasidic garb, a hooked strap-on nose, fingering greenbacks and leering at gentile children as potential matzos makings)? Forget illegal, you wouldn’t deem any it offensive? You’d be good encouraging the teams to bring it on in public?
Great. You’re saying racism, sexism, homophobia (etc.) are only a problem because the victims of it choose to be offended.
It’s not over-concerned people on the ‘far left’ taking offence of other people’s behalf. It’s black people who speak out against racism, women against sexism, gay people against homophobia. (Who the hell is ‘far left’ these days anyway? They’re practically non-existent)
So long as it is nothing but speech, yes. When that translates into action, that’s something else. But if someone wants to hate black people and talk about hating black people, we have this thing called a Constitution, maybe you’ve heard of it? It guarantees that free speech will not be abridged by the government, even speech that you might not personally agree with. That’s where the Skokie trial was so important, it guaranteed that even so-called offensive speech is protected. The only counter to speech you dislike is more speech, not an attempt to censor people you don’t care for.
Cephus impervius immaculatus
I never mentioned censorship. I was just talking about your attitude to offence. You seem to think it is always the fault of the person being offended, never the person being offensive. It can be wrong to deliberately go around demeaning people (and it surely is) even if it is legal to do so.
I suspect that most of the male commenters on this thread at least have never experienced being on the receiving end of racism, misogyny (well of course not that), anti-Semitism, homophobia, genuine Islamophobia (which might be better called ‘Muslimphobia’), etc. It is very easy to be splendidly rational, pretend to a transcendental equanimity and recite really what amounts to the childish jingle that a lot of us were brought up on: ‘Sticks and stones may break my bones, but words may never harm me.’ Words do hurt – I have seen them hurt people; sometimes the hurt was intended, sometimes it was a casual remark that unintentionally brought to light an underlying attitude or habit of the sensibility. Words do not exist in some innocuous social space apart from social practice – they are part of social practice. The leftist thought police are certainly pretty contemptible and not to be taken seriously (intellectually, that is), but it does not mean that everything is really unproblematic if only one is sufficiently enlightened, something which certain commenters here seem to preen themselves on being.
I sympathize with your view.
Seems to me that if one much at all hurled vile epithets at others, s/he would surely have to more than a little enjoy doing so.
Seems that the self-discipline expected of one on the receiving end to bear up under a vile verbal assault ought to be no less expected of the one dishing it out to refrain from doing so.
But, let’s say that only the one on the receiving end has that duty. I assume we’re speaking of adults here. What if some adult out-of-the-blue verbally assaults my/your child with vile epithets? Maybe gets within 2-3 feet of her/him? Shall both she/he and I/you merely and solely and silently stand there and take it?
“no one can offend you, it is an active proposition on the part of the offended”
This is obviously true.
But I still would advice to use it with caution, offending other people can have negative consequences, for you and other people.
“they need to grow the hell up”
I also doubt society would benefit as a whole when no one would take offense. It’s very likely we’ll never know.
I do not think, peepuk, that is those who are upset by abuse who need to ‘grow the hell up’, but it is rather our heroically intransigent little friend Cephus, who is, I suspect, doing a bit of trolling.
The whole idea of Halloween is based on a sort of political incorrectness. TRICK of treat? We would sometimes toilet paper the houses of some people who did not give us treats when I was in 5th grade. There has to be at least ONE DAY to be culturally insensitive! (in fun) It’s like Gay Pride — it’s okay to be raunchy and uninhibited every so often. I suppose a guy, gay or straight, dressing as a woman for these days is insensitive to transgender women, but so what? It’s FUN. Drag queens are insensitive to women and transgender women. They’re probably the next to be censured.
Drag queens already are being censured and banned from performing at some gay pride events for fear of offending the transgendered. I suspect drag queens will be increasingly marginalized as time goes on, despite their long history in the LGBT community.
That is very odd to me, because if gender and sexual identity is indeed complex and fluid, and exists on a continuum, then I don’t see how identifying as male and straight but enjoying dressing up in women’s clothing (even if only once a year, on Halloween) isn’t a legitimate point on that continuum.
Identifying as male and straight, yet preferring to dress as a woman, IS legitimate. But there are many younger gays now who feel that drag queens are demeaning and insensitive to women. If fact, Caitlyn Jenner, I thought, identified as a heterosexual male (when she was Bruce), which would now make her a lesbian if she were sexually active, but I saw an interview where Caitlyn said she likes a man to hold the door open for here and a man that “makes her feel like a woman” — so I don’t know WHAT the hell is going on anymore.
I’ve come to appreciate that if any two parts of human sexuality (or behaviour in general) are “conceptually dissociable” they are in practice sometimes such, to a first approximation.
I should love to see a drag queen being censured…. And who would be doing the finger-wagging?
Halloween is not, or used not to be, observed (I suppose that is the right word!) in England south of the Wash, so I don’t think I have a right to an opinion on this, but what on earth have Mexican sombreros and handlebar moustaches got to do with Halloween anyway? Catholic exorcists, Siberian shamans, perhaps,if one wants to represent the living rather than the dead or denizens of the spirit world, seem suitable, but supposedly flesh-and-blood Mexicans in moustaches and sombreros?
Would there be any objection from commenters here to people dressing up as cats?
Or cats in cowboy boots. Playing saxes. And nomming international cuisine.
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A world without drag queens would be a lot less fun!
I’m afraid it’s gotten to the point that I just cannot find any joy in what used to be my favorite holiday. At least I have memories of what it was like when people gave each other the benefit of the doubt that their costumes were intended to shock, enlighten, or simply crack each other up — even *if* they were over-the-top stereotypes. There’s just no joy in any of it; it’s all been sucked out, once again.
Halloween is the best of the Candy Holidays, IMHO, and it’s very popular in my city. I can decorate my front porch and window with images of favorite animals like bats, owls, and ravens. As an anatomist, I also enjoy the skull and skeleton imagery. Though according to the video, I can no longer utilize Day of the Dead imagery or eat skull-shaped cookies from a Mexican bakery, lest I commit the sin of cultural appropriation.
Well, Jerry, I suppose now we must give up cowboy boots. Imagine, demeaning that vanishing race, the cowboy, and insulting Texas cultural tradition.
I think the term “cultural appropriation” should be rejected as propaganda. Like many terms invented by people with an agenda but without a good argument for it, the phrase is inaccurate and deliberately deceptive, being designed to sound worse than it really is.
Nothing is being appropriated when cultural “appropriation” occurs. Nothing is being “stolen”. If I wear a sombrero that doesn’t mean Mexicans can’t wear sombreros anymore. If a white girl wears dreadlocks, that doesn’t mean blacks can’t wear dreadlocks anymore.
Culture may be copied, adopted, imitated, or even mocked or satirized, but not appropriated or stolen, and using their propaganda terms only assists them in pushing their point of view by skipping the step where they need to establish that something bad is actually happening before questioning whether people should be allowed to do it.
Yep. Is every non-Sikh man with a beard appropriating Sikh culture (it’s one of their five articles of faith)?
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What is being forgotten here is that the costumes of Halloween are a form of playacting. Where does the prohibition stop? Will the fourth grader playing the part of a Pilgrim have to prove Pilgrim ancestry? And who will take the part of the Indians (oh, sorry, Native Americans) at the first Thanksgiving in the class play if the school doesn’t have any NA’s? We really need to get a grip, folks. We are losing our sense of humor!
I once knew a beguiling lass, 3/4 Thai, 1/4 Chinese, who dressed up as a Japanese geisha. Is she to be condemned? How many of these hypersensitive folks can distinguish among Japanese, Chinese, Korean?
I’m from E. Tennessee. If I want to dress up as a shirtless, overhauls-wearing, ‘baccer-chewing/snuff-dippin’ Redneck for Halloween, who is anyone to deny me? (Well, maybe someone from SE KY, SW VA, W NC, NW GA, or NE AL, might be so justified. 😉 )
You just made me realize that the Redskins should change their team name to the Rednecks. That would solve all the problems…or something.
Apparently belly dancing is not something that white women can do, as it is cultural appropriation:
http://www.salon.com/2014/03/04/why_i_cant_stand_white_belly_dancers/
So is it only white women (no matter how tanned) who are not allowed to belly dance?
Well, for the first time, I have received an email notifying me of a post I myself posted.
Your avatar pattern is different. Perhaps you mistyped when you filled in the name or email fields. Every time I screw up and make an anonymous comment I get an email notification for it.
Yes.
“It’s Arab face,” my friend Nadine once said, pointing at an invitation from a white acquaintance of hers.
Once, on a blog that I used to frequent, a white-looking woman wrote an article about racism and how it’s bad, mmmk. So a teenie-bopper SJW shows up and starts ripping her a new one
‘YOU ARE WHITE SO SHUT UP AND STOP TALKING ABOUT BLACK PEOPLE. BLACK PEOPLE HAVE A VOICE, LET US DO OUR OWN TALKING’
The kicker? The teenie-bopper looked, in her profile picture, like a lily white skinned red head. Yep. Then again, she could have been half black or something, but, how the hell does she know that the author isn’t also half black and just presents as white?
SJWs, where double standards abound.
And this particular nasty incident that I have been reading about. What looks to be a white woman telling a white girl that she should kill herself because her art wasn’t PC enough:
http://i.imgur.com/xoDFHx8.jpg
(Apparently one of the girl’s crimes was to draw a Jewish character with a small nose)
I honestly cannot even tell if that Facebook comment is sincere or parody/trolling. Either way, it’s a cruel comment, but this kind of outrage is so easy to parody that it’s difficult to distinguish an ironic caricature of it from the genuine article.
Yes, for example, it was deeply offensive recently when on the Late Show with Stephen Colbert, Misty Copeland (African American) appropriated French culture by dancing ballet, while Yo Yo Ma (French born Chinese American) appropriated German culture by playing music by J.S. Bach. Deeply, deeply offensive.
It is only appropriation if done by white people because whites have no culture and are just imperialist oppressors.
“It is only appropriation if done by white people because whites have no culture and are just imperialist oppressors.”
And is additionally indicative of out insensitivity. Feel free to sing along.
I actually find that article offensive. I wonder if my Indian friends can no longer where European clothing and must wear saris all the time (they usually have fancy saris for special occasions like weddings and Indian celebrations). And if I go to an Indian wedding I guess, I have to just wear European clothing.
And Eric Clapton can’t play blues.
And white people can’t say “Dat booty doe.”
The director of a course in which I team-teach offered a few bonus quiz points to students who dressed up for class yesterday. Around 75 of the 100 or so students (most in their early to mid-twenties) in the class wore costumes of some sort, and not one of the costumes could have been characterized as cultural appropriation. There were quite a few felids, though … cat makeup and cat ears make a quick costume.
Is it appropriation to eat foods from cultures that are not your own? Can one dress up as a taco, or crochet amigurumi sushi, without offending someone? I don’t think I want to go on living, if I’m restricted to German and English food.
They’ll have to pry the manicotti from my cold, dead fingers.
I lived in Taiwan for 5 years, is that enough? Can I still eat Chinese food?
I dunno, I’m sitting here with my three dogs, thinking that the Pomeranian-dachshund mixes are OK for me to keep, but the Chihuahua should probably go back to the shelter.
Oh dear, my Keeshond (Dutch Barge Dog) might be a bit borderline. He’s going to be very upset if I tell him we can’t keep him.
There’s a joke about eating dog meat somewhere in this comment thread, but I won’t make it as it is probably offensive and culturally insensitive.
Please don’t use roman letters, you’re not in the Vatican.
How about French letters?
Like é, ç or ô?
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animals certainly don’t care if you dress up as one of them – but can the animal rights people take offense? That would be silly.
The whole things is ridiculous to us. Black face is one thing, or innate or disfiguring features could be considered insulting but clothes??? Jeeeeeeeeez-
I once attended a party at the house of a vegan couple, and noticed that there were no animal images or photos visible anywhere. They had dogs and a cat, but no photos of the pets anywhere obvious. No animal-shaped refrigerator magnets, no pillows with animal imagery, no animal figurines. The shelves were decorated with rocks, and the walls with images of trees or landscapes with rocks. Maybe it was just a coincidence, but most people have at least a few things like chicken-shaped potholders or something.
I read that there is a big push to remove native costumes from Halloween costume stores.
I dunno. I think it’s going a bit far. Should I be angry at Monty Python for dressing up as lumberjacks and Mounties because I’m Canadian and that’s a stereotype?
Surely Canucks are far too polite to take offence?
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But those lumberjacks also put on women’s clothing (and hang around in … bars?)
I wonder if it’s alright for a not-True Scotsman to wear a kilt.
Yes, but only if it’s Black Watch tartan.
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There’s an all-Japanese Highland bagpipe band here in Japan, complete with kilts and all the trimmings and probably with fundoshi on under the kilts, to keep on the safe and respectable side.
A real, authentic True-Scotsman’s kilt, sure. But otherwise, it’s CRAP!.
See my comment at #3.
“Should I be angry at Monty Python for dressing up as lumberjacks and Mounties because I’m Canadian and that’s a stereotype?”
Yes you should, and if you aren’t you’re part of the problem. :p
My other choice was going to be “yes you should be offended aboot it”.
I mean “you should be offended aboot it eh”
Your insistence that I should feel outrage is a micro aggression. 😛
Stop oppressing me. Both of you.
I am Canadian and I have a sawmill’s worth of deadfall stacked in my front yard that I have to buck up and stack. I haven’t been able to work on it for the last three days due to rainy oppression.
I could have collected even more, but a misogynist grizzly bear chose to wander through the area this month and I couldn’t go out into the bush :((
Without becoming a snack, at any rate
OOOh, I just remembered.
Yeah.
The LUMBERSEXUAL
It’s a real thing.
SJW hipsters trying to look tough and earthy by dressing like lumberjacks
https://www.google.ca/search?q=lumbersexual&safe=off&source=lnms&tbm=isch&sa=X&ved=0CAcQ_AUoAWoVChMI9YuG9qDuyAIVA-ZjCh2PfA3A&biw=1920&bih=943
I trust they wiggle their lumber regions as they walk.
You see this in film, too. Asian actors are offended when a non-Asian actor plays an Asian role. Laurence Olivier gave a great performance in “Othello” — in blackface — but he probably couldn’t get away with it today without backlash. Katherine Hepburn played a Chinese peasant in “Dragon Seed” in a California-built China. A mostly white cast and a particularly offensive “ethnic” score. That was probably a mistake. Mickey Rooney, too, playing a howling “oriental” stereotype — a Japanese photographer in “Breakfast at Tiffany’s”.
I think they’re mostly pissed off because it means that actual minority actors don’t get the parts, so there is a real cost to them of this sort of behaviour. Someone wearing a geisha costume for Halloween isn’t costing anyone a job.
Whenever Social Justice Warriors voice concern over something mightily important, such as “manspreading”, offers of hot beverages in confined spaces, or the correct costumes, I wonder if this is really such a rampant problem that we all need education.
The next thing that irks me is their parental (thus authoritarian) attitude they naturally assume, and which allows them to bring a problem into existence by making such a fuss about it. But I might be wrong. Maybe souls where crushed for decades in the USA (and Britain) by evil people wearing the false costumes.
The cultural appropriation charge is also incompatible with complains about stereotyping. Either, the argument is that cultures have stereotypical costumes and they belong to these people, more like a kind of culture-copyright; or certain costumes perpetuate a stereotype, and it is that, which is found “problematic”. But I guess among postmodernists, both things can exist in a superimposed state.
The more I think about, the more I believe the entire concept of “cultural appropriation” is misguided. First off, to be a costume at all, it must be something taken from another time or non-everyday context. Jobs might have a culture attached to it, too, think miners or sailors. Second, the point of a costume is to be recognizable as something from a different context, which would naturally gravitate towards stereotypical features of the thing that is being portrayed. Next problem is all wearable clothes when they have a basis in reality, have been created by some group of people for a purpose. Technically, you could only wear fantasy costumes or of fictional characters.
A costume can still be in bad taste, but it depends on other things than whether the costume is a themepark-version of a culture, job or historical era (which are also culturally attached to people). I can understand the argument that the stereotype can “erase” (as the SJWs would say) a variety and diversity that is also found in that culture, though I am not sure what the harm is. Germans are always portayed as lederhosen-wearing hunters who drink beer, even though this is only the regional outfit of the Alpine peoples (i.e. Bavarians) and of hunters. It’s true that many don’t know about the Frisians or North Germans, for example, who also have a stereotypical outfit.
Since I’m originally from there, I hereby grant everyone permission to culturally appropriate the style. You need the typical white-darkblue striped shirt, called “Friesenhemd”, white trousers, and a hat (sailor’s cap, sailor’s hat or wool-cap), optionally a red scarf. You can enhance your costume with an accordion or concertina, but perhaps get a plastic trout to fend off the approaching Costume Police if you don’t want to outright slay them. Accordions are also quite heavy, and generally not practicable to partying.
Another thing: so here we have people who complain about cultural appropriation, on a festival that is itself culturally appropriated from the celtic pagans.
Very fetching …
http://www.hanseheld.de/media/image/thumbnail/5353_1_900x800.jpg
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Yeah, apologies for my snark below. Like Wagner’s music, it’s better than it sound.
Yo, Kumpel, I usually don’t risk giving intentional offense, but I gotta say it: that sounds like one ugly-ass white-pants, sailor-hat outfit, na?
What’s the optional red scarf for, to blindfold yourself?
Yet another obstacle (in addition to my wife’s veto) between me and a nice, comfy robe. Blue jeans are torture devices for any man, but they’re especially tough on us fat guys. No fat man looks (or feels) good in a suit. Maybe I could get away with it if I also wear a fez, and claim to be from someplace fictional…
Yeah this is really getting out of hand. What about all the Oktoberfest knock offs that happen all over the U.S.? Next weekend I’m going to “Wurstfest” in New Braunfels, Texas. This being south Texas, a good portion of the people going are bound to be Hispanic; does anyone think it’s wrong for them to go?
What about all the white Americans who practice yoga and meditation? Or east Asian martial arts?
What about me trying (badly) to cook Indian food or going to a sushi making class?
Speaking of yoga, another op-ed in my student newspaper decried the practice of yoga by some Westerners as a misguided form of cultural appropriation.
“Imperialism”? That’s quite a stretch. Presumably they have dictionaries in Chicago, I wonder how that happened?
That’s crazy!
Think about how divisive these people are being. The irony is so deep! Their efforts of hyper inclusion have lead to extreme exclusion; we shouldn’t share our culture, as it is offensive and racist to do so. In other words, keep to your own people. Amazing!
Ayup.
Drag Queens officially banned from gay pride event because they make trans people feel uncomfortable!
http://www.queerty.com/drag-queens-officially-banned-from-gay-pride-event-for-being-offensive-20150720
Wow. Now I’ve heard it all!
Wow, gonna be some bummed-out “girls” at “Fantasy Fest” down in Key West tonight.
To be fair, despite its use of PC signaling terms such as “cultural appropriation,” I don’t think the op-ed was that bad actually. The author (an Indian) was just lamenting the commercialized fad version of yoga, not demanding that westerners disassociate themselves from yoga altogether. The closing point–“I’m all for practicing yoga universally—as long as people respect its historical and cultural significance and don’t turn it into an unrecognizable and insignificant fitness fad”–is a reasonable one, I think.
But why can’t we do what we want with yoga? Isn’t that the idea of sharing ideas? There are loads of health benefits to yoga (currently I’m using it to stretch the scar tissue from radiation damage) and honestly, as an atheist, I don’t like the wooish bits. That may offend this writer, but I probably offend a lot of religious and wooish.
Maybe I misread the article, but I thought the author’s primary target was people practicing the commercial version of yoga under the illusion that by doing so they’re being “spiritual” or making some kind of deep, authentic connection with Indian culture (“India is not a shortcut to the West’s yearning for spirituality and connection”; “Many people believe they are preserving a time-honored tradition, imbibing India’s rich and varied culture, but they are blissfully unaware of what that culture actually constitutes”).
I agree that anyone doing yoga purely for the real health benefits has nothing to apologize for or feel guilty about. If that’s “cultural appropriation,” then it’s a perfectly legitimate form of it. I just didn’t take that to be the main point of the article, though maybe I’m being too charitable to the author.
It is understandable, not reasonable.
He is lamenting the romanticizing of India, but has a very romantic view of Yoga:
“Clearly, yoga isn’t just a form of exercise; it’s a philosophy. It’s a way of being.”
Yoga became popular only after 1900, and current forms are heavily influenced by western gymnastics, bodybuilding and relaxation exercises.
I think Yoga gets more respect than it deserves but a bit of relaxing and stretching seems not to do much harm.
Back in the day, the only one catching shit for any of this was Elvis, after Hound-dog.
Bad gringos! No tacos for YOU!
I’m deeply offended by the word “burrito”. My grandfather bred miniature donkeys. Oh, wait, you said, “taco”. Nevermind.
So I guess that means I dress up as a pilgrim carrying a bow and arrow and wearing a sombrero with a feather. 😉
Code-switcher!
Oh, f— it. If animals could only talk!
I have no problem with the Mariachi band, except they suck at pulling it off. Where are the stringed instruments? And the ubiquitous mustaches are overkill. I have a sombrero and poncho I’ve worn as a costume in my younger days. I have no problem with geisha costumes, those of nurses, construction workers and what not. What’s offensive is if the character or theme is inherently offensive such as a Nazi/SS guard or a terrorist.
Oh, I hasten to add that while ghouls, zombies, monsters, vampires, devils, etc might be offensive to some, these are typical halloween get-ups and all get a free pass.
It’s very sad that hypersensitivity is crowding out our ability to laugh at ourselves once in a while. We’ve come to take ourselves so damn seriously!
At least none of those groups is going to complain about cultural appropriation!
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Actually, we had 32 trick-or-treaters come to our door this evening, and all were dressed as one of those groups or witches. Mainly witches, really. (I guess wiccans might object to that.)
Dressing up as anything else is just not a thing in the UK, I think.
But then, 30 years ago we didn’t even have trick-or-treat.
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Los Coen hermanos, OTOH, they do Mariachi right.
I make beaded jewelry. The world of beading is vast; there are traditions from every continent and many, many different peoples, and beaders mix and match them with a vengeance.
I make my own designs, and I’m not well-researched on historical patterns; even so, being white, I won’t knowingly use a traditional Native American pattern. Still, many people invent and re-invent the same ideas. Especially growing up in the West, there are lots of Native American cultural motifs about; one internalizes what one likes. But if it feels like I’m stepping into someone else’s cultural territory, I’ll change the design.
But what has really frosted me is that I’ve been accused of cultural appropriation for daring to put a needle through a bead in the first place! As though Europeans never had a rich tradition of their own.
I get the need to be sensitive. But sooner or later somebody is going to declare breathing as cultural appropriation. (Not that this asthmatic does it all that well anyhow.)
I know! And the Chinese are well-known for their exquisite bead work on their traditional gowns and dresses too.
I did once make, what I thought was a hilarious comment about mass produced dream catchers: we took your land and culture and now we’re taking your arts and crafts too!
“I won’t knowingly use a traditional Native American pattern …”
Like swastikas … ?!?!?!
Clearly not a cultural appropriation from Nazism, but these days traditional hooked-cross designs in other cultures are ignorantly vilified because “everyone” sees them as fascist and racist symbols.
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Sorry. Did I just Godwin the thread? Oh, no. Smokedpaprika beat me to it.
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That kind of “cultural appropriation” has a noble pedigree, going back to the Cro-Magnons in the caves of Lascaux. Think of it as pastiche.
Without it, we might still be back there in the caves with the Cro-Mags.
There’s a distinction between an outfit that has long been used for the express purpose of insulting, belittling, and marginalizing a historically disenfranchised minority (like blackface) and a costume that merely appropriates cultural identity (even if, in doing so, it plays upon stereotype. Hell, if it doesn’t play upon stereotype to some extent, it isn’t really a “costume,” is it?)
Even as to the latter category, there’s another distinction to be drawn regarding costumes that exaggerate stereotypes, especially as to physical characteristics, in a way meant not merely to appropriate, but plainly to insult. (I mean, have you watched Mickey Rooney playing a Japanese character in Breakfast at Tiffany’s? Jesus!)
That’s not to say there’s any bright line separating these categories. Clearly, there’s not. That’s a reason I’d personally never wear any costume based on ethnicity or race — but, then, I’ve never been one to dress up on Halloween anyway.
“There’s a distinction between an outfit that has long been used for the express purpose of insulting, belittling, and marginalizing a historically disenfranchised minority (like blackface) and a costume that merely appropriates cultural identity”
Absolutely.
Saying “appropriates” is misleading, I think. It’s buying in to the offence narrative.
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I wonder if anyone has ever worn “white-face”.
http://www.shelookbook.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/10/Halloween-Best-Cavalera-Makeup-Sugar-Skull…sugar-skull-makeup-kitmakeup-kit-water-makeup-worst-beauty-bloggers-black-eye-dark-gray-to-blend-cheekbones.jpg
More seriously, yes. Eddie Murphy, for example.
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* Oh, the image isn’t displaying. How about this one: https://s-media-cache-ak0.pinimg.com/736x/44/36/e9/4436e9a11204b3f2fdde20f997a61e64.jpg
You don’t find that kind of reverse appropriation in places with a history of one-way “passing.”
I told everyone at work that I was dressed up as a bitter Caucasian middle aged woman.
Playing against type, huh? Must be enlightening to stretch your horizons like that, discover what it is to walk in the shoes of another, someone so unlike yourself.
As Ministry says, Everyday is Halloween.
People have a deep need to feel morally superior. It’s probably part of some evolutionary adaption related to group dynamics. We spend an awful lot of time dreaming up trivial reasons to condemn other people’s behavior. Knocking someone else down in the pecking order is likely to raise your own status within the group. That can have life-and-death ramifications, even in modern times.
Of course, that’s all conjecture. But we all know that chick’s dig social justice warriors.
Dang, no way to edit typos.
1) It seems to me that if there is anything to be criticised about “cultural appropriation” it is not so much the appropriation, because it seems idiotic to bash somebody for adopting a certain dress or food type or whatever because they like it, but the mocking.
In my mind the issue thus reduces to either “don’t mock people”, which should be uncontroversial, or “don’t use stuff from other cultures, even if you love that stuff”, which is bizarre. Not sure why people see a grey line there. If anything it is costumes, but then I also think that it is fairly clear when a kid is wearing a Native American costume because they think that Native Americans are cool and when employees of a foreclosure mill dress up as the people who they kicked out of their houses because they want to poke fun at them. Not rocket science to figure out which is which.
2) US-Americans will have to understand that blackface cannot automatically be considered offensive also in other parts of the world and in all contexts because not everybody shares the same minstrel play history.
3) This goes together with other weirdly parochically American-centred demands such as that every story has to include, and I quote, “PoC”. Take the recent movie Frozen, for example, which got a lot of flack from certain parts for not having a major African-American character in a story that plays among royalty in an alternate history version of ca. 18/19th century Norway. (To be consistent, I also demand that Mulan be remade with more Australian Aboriginal characters.)
4) As a final thought, although it is bad enough if people want to force others to stop wholly benign “appropriation”, things are particularly hopeless if one isn’t given any way out, if whatever one does is always wrong. (Consider as a classic example somebody who will fault a minority for working hard because they are taking away white people’s jobs but who will also fault them for not working because then they are lazy. The only way out is not to be a member of that minority.)
In the present context of cultural appropriation, consider again the Frozen movie. As mentioned above, it was faulted for not having enough PoC characters. Doubleplusungood! One might point out that one of the main characters was a representative of Norway’s own minority, the Sami, so the movie tried to be “inclusive”. But oh no – Disney didn’t get all the details of his clothes and sled 100% right, and anyway that only means that Disney committed the sin of cultural appropriation. Also doubleplusungood! The only way out would have been not to make a movie.
So, you can’t wear a pair of jeans unless you are a white American? What about folks like me, who can’t really tell what ‘my own culture’ is—go around naked?
Also, is learning a foreign language is a form of cultural appropriation? Sounds like it certainly is!!!
What if you’re an expat? If you live in a different country than the one of your birth, it seems to this is the most extreme form if cultural appropriation.
Coming from a different angle, this is great – Halloween wheelchairs!
http://www.magicwheelchair.org/
That’s heartwarming! There are some pretty great people in this world.
I read the other day that you should not wear the dress of minorities in your culture but it is ok for them to wear yours. This is fine when you live in the states but what if you are like me and have lived all around the world. Should I be upset because my Indian friends wear polo shirts and chinos when I am a minority in their country. Do I feel offended in china where they not only wear western dress but mass produce it to sell back to us all this talk is bull and just shows how people are being manipulated into seeing what they perceive as disrespect in every little thing that other people do. It is another form of trying to get one up on other people by showing that they are not doing what you want them to do. Grow up and get a life.
I went to a Hindu wedding, all 5 days, and wore Indian clothes, both sari and salwar kameez, as well as western clothes on different days. The family was very appreciative that I took the effort to wear appropriate clothing. I was even offered a bindi.
In Bali, I was required to wear Balinese dress when Balinese acquaintances invited me to attend a religious service on an important festival day.
Isn’t dressing up as or ‘Imitation is the sincerest form of flattery’
I see nothing wrong with the sombrero moustache thing. I bet they ate mexican food at the party as well OMG!
It is a difficult question. On Cinco de Mayo everyone is ‘Mexican’, on St Patty’s Day everyone is ‘Irish’, during Oktoberfest everyone is Southern German. Those festivals are to celebrate the great US mesh of peoples from all over. I can understand why cultural minorities could feel a bit offended because there are stereotypes that still beleaguer them. Perhaps dressing up as a particular person – such as Mao, Chez Rivera, Eva Peron, or Pancho Villa would be okay rather than dressing up as a cultural stereotype. As long as there are presidential candidates and other politicians who feel it is appropriate to make broad statements about people who were born in a particular area of the world – I personally would prefer to tread lightly…
For Halloween, the truly creative will find a way to be offensive without cultural appropriation. I recall, in 1980, seeing someone dressed as a box of Rely tampons.
By the way, when did Halloween, for adults, stop being about tripping?
When they fixed the sidewalks.
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How would one dress up as an easily-offended college student?
For starters, you could dye your hair blue and pierce a densely-innervated part of your face, preferably in the “danger zone” area.
runs away
Yesterday afternoon, I saw a guy at a mall, dressed pretty “normally,” wearing jean cut-offs, carrying a shopping bag, wearing a red tutu. No one seemed particularly fazed by it. Guess he was doing his trick-or-treating early.
That wasn’t some guy trick-or-treating; that was my mother-in-law!
(Or are mother-in-law jokes off the table now as non-PC, too?)
“That wasn’t some guy trick-or-treating; that was my mother-in-law!”
Well, that explains that most noticeable rotational hitch in his get-a-long.
Too many snowflakes on the left. And a whole lot of anti-Caucasian bias. I am a brown asian dude, and I have never received flack for wearing a Mexican sombrero, an Aladdin-type costume, or even a Native American outfit. But imagine if I were white, I would never hear the end of it.
I’ve been thinking for a while that the next time someone starts talking about Judeo-Christian values/heritage/whatever that I should accuse them of cultural appropriation.
I wonder how much the cultural landscape would change if people a) didn’t feel the need to get offended on behalf of others, and b) felt the need to try to limit what others do.
I guess what impresses me about it all is how well other people know what’s best and appropriate for everyone. I barely know what’s best for myself!
Cultural appropriation was originally the practice of drug companies taking native remedies and commercialising them for enormous profits without anything going back to the communities that had discovered them. This is obviously not honourable behaviour. Getting all worked up about people wearing geisha costumes is yet another victimless crime. Where is the actual damage here? Who is suffering? The burning urge that a segment of the population feels to tell the rest of us that we aren’t up to their standards, needs to be resisted.
The monetization of cultural appropriation has a long history. As when east-coast music producers would go out on the “chitlin’ circuit” signing black R&B and blues artists to adhesion contracts, taking unconscionably large shares of the profits and undeserved songwriting credits for themselves, then passing the material on to white artists for re-recording and release to mass audiences.
I once had a difference of opinion with a former musical performance group chum (but didn’t press it so as to “keep the peace” as it’s hard to do anything, especially music, “by committee”) regarding an at-the-time pop music luminary refusing to record a song unless he were given (undeserved) songwriter credit (and royalty).
I opined that that was unethical and not admirable. He replied to the effect that it was “just business” and common practice. His advertised Christian values apparently were not informing his view of the matter.
Jerry, tell the people in the video that they are no longer allowed to celebrate Halloween.
They have participated in the appropriation and trivialization of “bits and pieces” of Keltic culture, but worse, they have misappropriated one of the high holy days of the Keltic religion: Samhain (pronounced Saah-win). By dressing in ridiculous costumes they are denigrating a people and culture of which they have no understanding, propagating a 1500 year old crime against the Keltic peoples by christian militants.
I would love to hear their responses.
I try not to offend anyone. This is why I’ve started showering while fully clothed, so as not to appropriate nudist culture.
It’s hard to feel strongly about this issue when you know most cultural mores are arbitrary anyway. If painting your face black, wearing a swastika, or going naked varies from time to time and place to place so capriciously, then on what grounds does the notion of “should/shouldn’t” enter into it? It strikes me as like asking whether wallpaper “ought” to be blue or green. What difference is it supposed to make?
Offence is a culturally implanted phobia. It entails nothing more radical than aversion therapy. If there were any harm beyond “offence” going on, we’d have our reason for imposing “should/shouldn’t” on the matter, and the “offence” argument is revealed as an irrelevant distraction.
I’m largely sympathetic to what the students in the video are trying to do in raising consciousness about the possible messages a choice of costume might send out. It doesn’t hurt to stop and think.
Calling it “cultural appropriation” isn’t necessarily accurate, though. It’s more cultural illiteracy and ignorance that they’re struggling against – especially the use of symbolic shorthand to represent an entire culture, or rather to reduce it to a stereotype so that everyone knows “what you are” when you turn up to the party. Cultural appropriation strikes me as a somewhat different and often more insidious behaviour. Appropriation of Native American cultural symbols, traditions, and so on seems problematic to me in the U.S. because the supposed “celebration” goes hand in hand with the historical annihilation of a diversity of peoples and cultures that the U.S. has done little to redress. This is not at all the same as Jerry’s choice to wear kurta pajama or, I think, mine to have a lovely warm wool kimono made while I lived in Japan (I was way too tall for women’s ready-mades.) and to wear it on special occasions.
At the same time, since watching the student video last night, I’ve been unable to shake of my irritation at the words of the last of the student representatives to speak. He reminds me that just because you feel wronged doesn’t always make you right. The idea that dressing up in a judo gi is off limits because disrespectful of the many Asian Americans who practice martial arts and follow belief systems connected with them is to me offensive in itself. To claim this as the cultural property of one community (and in one country!) seems to me quite disrespectful of the many millions of people around the world, Asian or otherwise, who practice martial arts. Judo is a particularly silly one to place off-limits given that it’s an olympic sport. So no, we do not have to bow to one person’s offense, and dialogue and a bit of give-and-take would be more useful than simply laying down the law here.
“So no, we do not have to bow to one person’s offense, and dialogue and a bit of give-and-take would be more useful than simply laying down the law here.”
*applause*
I fully agree. I want my culture left untouched by others of other cultures.
I guess it’s completely unrelated, but the nickname “Maroons” and the Chicago Maroon, makes me think of the escaped slaves in Jamaica who fled to the mountains. They were called Maroons. That would be an offensive team nickname or Halloween costume.
In South Dakota, there has been some controversy regarding high school celebrations that seem to demonstrate, at best, cultural insensitivity. Here are a couple of posts by Cory Heidelberger (blog author of Dakota Free Press, formerly Madville Times) that describe some of the background and opinions on these issues:
http://madvilletimes.com/2014/09/watertown-students-dress-up-as-indians-for-homecoming/
http://dakotafreepress.com/2015/09/08/indian-students-continue-fight-against-sisseton-logo-school-board-silent/#comments .
Heidelberger sums up the situation: “Ki-Yi [the questionable high school homecoming ceremony] is not teaching the students about Native American culture. It is reciting a fiction created by white people with a vague pretense of Native authenticity. We do not learn about Indians by studying our preconceptions about Indians. We reinforce our stereotypes and ignore the real Indians living among us, the real culture that our fictions and biases crowd out.”
I wonder if people from India take offense at his term, “real Indians”. 🙂
My parents went to a festival on the Rez a while back and a guy next to my dad, nudged him and said lauging and pointing, “Look, real Indians!” My dad looked and he was pointing at East Indians.
Why do I never hear a single word about millions of Mexicans putting on White Face to celebrate their Day of the Dead. Also Haiti has a similar Voodoo celebration today where White Face is used to imitate zombies. SJWs and the PC police need to criticize everyone or even better, find a real problem to solve.
OK… without even getting into the technicalities of how historical power differences work, there is a simple answer.
The white paint is used to imitate skulls, not to imitate white people. It’d be like if I covered my face in black because I was dressing as a Navy SEAL on a night op, that wouldn’t be offensive just because my face was painted black.
Are you a troll or an idiot?
Let’s not use insults to other commenters, ok?
Mexicans are cool. So is their food, and culture. What’s wrong with wanting to look like them for fun?
Besides Mexico’s economy benefit from the sale of hats and things like that. And if you see someone wearing it your probably going to want to go to a Mexican restaurant.
Most Asians don’t like the Asian hat because they think it looks stupid but if a white person wants to wear it, they don’t care. Why can’t we appreciate other cultures by emulating them now and then?
As a Mexican, a real Mexican (one born, raised and currently living in Mexico) I can tell you, there is NOTHING wrong with those costumes, I’m actually offended that people think we could be offended by that, we are not idiots, we are aware of stereotypes and we embrace them, this kind of costumes are popular here during independence day or in football matches…
“But what about other costumes? Indian costumes, which people wore when I’m a kid, are deemed offensive because they stereotype Native Americans, but couldn’t you see it as paying homage to them, wearing the often striking clothes that the natives did?”
I disagree with this. First, they are not called Natives, they prefer the term Indigenous peoples. Second, when Indigenous children were forcibly removed from their homes and put into westernized residential schools they were stripped from their beautiful, symbolic clothing, and forced to wear westernized clothing. These children were sexually, emotionally, and physically abused in these schools because the dominant culture saw them as barbarians. Seeing how their culture was stripped of them and seeing how they were not “deemed fit for society” they now see people wearing their clothes as if society said hey wait just kidding we like your clothes now and want to mock you. This brings back memories of a very sad chapter in Indigenous history that they would rather forget but never will. If they weren’t allowed to wear their own clothes why should you be? On another hand in Indigenous culture certain clothes were only worn by people of power and authority and had to work very hard to achieve the right to wear them. They also were only worn on certain celebrations and rituals. Each bead, each thread, means something to them, each was unique. Therefore I do not believe wearing their clothes is paying homage to them what so ever.
Wow, you have a very active imagination. I especially liked the part about historical evils, and how you overlaid past evils onto modern people… purely on the basis of their race, and nothing more.
I also found it interesting that you think that if a person was born with certain genes – if they belong to a certain race – that they magically become part-owner of a certain culture.
It’s really fascinating how you repeatedly diversely reduce whole groups of people to nothing more than their racial characteristics.
Nah, I’m just messin’ with you. You actually sound kinda Stormfront-ish with the racism. You really ought to dial that back a bit.
Hmm. I feel you have missed my point. I am not being racist what so ever. I am emphasizing the hurt and pain Indigenous people feel and continue to feel to this very day. The last residential school closed in 1996. That was only 19 years ago. These people are still alive and still have gruesome memories from these schools. They deserve to be treated with respect. Also on a side note, headdresses is reserved for elders who, through their selflessness and leadership, have earned the right to wear one. It’s a spiritual piece, not just cultural. Wearing one, even an imitation headdress, belittles what their elders have spent a lifetime to earn. Doing so is basically honouring a legacy of colonialism that openly tried to erase Indigenous peoples from the planet. Maybe my wording before just upset you. I did not mean to generalize the whole dominate culture.
Is there an official list (approved by whom?) of Halloween costumes somewhere?
With whom shall one first check in before donning a costume?
Nope.People just need to research their costume before purchasing so they are aware of what not to wear in order to be respectful 🙂