What’s scarier than ghosts and vampires visiting your door this Halloween? How about liberals lecturing you about how offensive your “cultural appropriating” costume is?
This holiday, social justice warriors of all stripes are being aided by the media to wage a campaign against “culturally appropriating costumes,” which is basically wearing anything from another culture. Remind me what the point of a costume was, again?
But even dressing up as your own culture won’t stop some on the left from complaining about your costume, as one Canadian student found out this week when his school stopped him from wearing a “very offensive” mariachi costume even though he’s of Colombian heritage.
Other “very offensive” costumes the media had problems with? Pocahontas, Cleopatra, Mexican sugar skulls, Geishas, gypsies, and the list goes on.
The finger-wagging began with the feminist media, from Ms. Magazine to Bustle to Refinery 29 to then major media outlets like USA Today and The Washington Post.
A writer for Gloria Steinem’s Ms. Magazine, Yasmine Rimawi, bemoaned that it was insensitive to dress up as a person from another culture because ... white privilege?
“In America, any external feature that deviates from the white ‘norm’ signifies your ethnicity and denotes you as ‘other.’ So, for example, African Americans are vilified for wearing their hair in certain ways and even denied employment opportunities, while the likes of Kylie Jenner and Miley Cyrus can dread and cornrow their locks for a single day and not face the daily struggles of being black.
While you may acknowledge your costume as a token of appreciation, wearing it for a single night holds the inverse effect.” [emphasis added]
The Washington Post took note warning readers not be “racist” with your costume. In an Oct. 26 article headlined, “Let’s Just Not: Halloween Costumes to Avoid This Week,” the author Jessica Contrera lectured:
“We’re going to trust that most people have long-since learned the lesson of avoiding ‘cultural appropriation’ Halloween costumes — the fancy word for being kind of racist by putting on another culture to get a laugh out of strangers at the bar. Argue about it all you’d like, but wearing a tribal headdress or painting your face a different skin tone are sure to get you some serious side-eye this Halloween.”
USA Today College contributor Allison Raeck also warned in article entitled, “4 things to remember when choosing a Halloween costume,” to not “confuse ignorance with cleverness” by choosing what she deemed was an offensive costume –like wearing a sombrero or dressing as a geisha. According to Raeck, college students should stay away from costumes that “perpetuate stereotypes of people of color, or lower socioeconomic status.”
Some media outlets like Refinery 29 and Mashable encouraged readers to confront others dressed in “inappropriate” costumes and explain to them just how offensive their costumes were. Mashable’s Katie Dupere claimed it was your “obligation” to “ask questions” and “demand answers” from the offending costumed persons. Then she gave this eye-roll worthy advice:
“If your friend says a costume is just a joke, be ready to argue why it's much more than that. Respond by explaining that the ‘joke’ has roots in real-world oppression, and that's not funny at all.”
No, what’s really not funny is the fact that liberals take a costume this seriously.
Women’s website Bustle even gave a step-by-step instructional on how to tell a friend their costume is racist.
"When it comes to Halloween costumes, the lines are fairly simple: Don’t use the traditional dress (or a caricature of the traditional dress) of a culture not your own as a Halloween costume. Your friend may say that he or she simply wants to pay tribute to a culture they find interesting, but you should point out that turning another culture’s traditions into a costume for an American holiday celebrated with beer and candy corn isn’t a tribute; it’s a trivialization."
Liberal activists continued the whining on Twitter with a social media campaign entitled #MyCultureIsNotACostume.
think about your halloween costume this year. please do not let yourself condone cultural appropriation. pic.twitter.com/J91dvi8Iu6
— forameus (@blissfuIfiction) October 11, 2015
While the media whines about having a PC costume on Halloween, they have no problem disrespecting Christ and Christians in entertainment on Christmas and Easter.
