Racist Halloween
Hey there, Josh here back at you with another blog post. So...
What's up with these Halloween costumes?
Halloween is a great time of year for many kids. It's the one time of the year that you get to dress up as whoever you want to and wander around your neighbourhood to receive candy from neighbours you never talk to. There are many controversial things about Halloween that no one wants to talk about like, a possible kidnapping and tampering with the food children receive. But the one thing I never thought would be more controversial is the costumes.
How could they be controversial? Most kids are either innocent, ignorant, or a mixture of both to purposely wear something to offend anyone. And it's true, they are innocent and ignorant enough to avoid causing any problems but the costume companies surely aren't. Companies like Party City continually manufacture costumes that definitely exceed what is okay to wear as a kid. One particular one would be the Aboriginal-themed costumes. Such costumes include several articles of clothing that are usually worn by significant people or as ceremonial pieces of clothing like the Warbonnets in the Aboriginal culture.
Costumes like these are designed around many cultural stereotypes and/or modified clothing that is supposed to have some significance to it. This is obviously not okay. There is a difference between appreciation and appropriation. When you take an aspect of someone else's culture, especially when you do not properly understand or respect it that is appropriation. It's obvious how the culture was not taken into consideration when designing and manufacturing these costumes and everyone must take a stand to this. Everyone has some sort of culture and is not right when someone is not able to take it seriously, even if it's for candy.
What's up with these Halloween costumes?
Halloween is a great time of year for many kids. It's the one time of the year that you get to dress up as whoever you want to and wander around your neighbourhood to receive candy from neighbours you never talk to. There are many controversial things about Halloween that no one wants to talk about like, a possible kidnapping and tampering with the food children receive. But the one thing I never thought would be more controversial is the costumes.
How could they be controversial? Most kids are either innocent, ignorant, or a mixture of both to purposely wear something to offend anyone. And it's true, they are innocent and ignorant enough to avoid causing any problems but the costume companies surely aren't. Companies like Party City continually manufacture costumes that definitely exceed what is okay to wear as a kid. One particular one would be the Aboriginal-themed costumes. Such costumes include several articles of clothing that are usually worn by significant people or as ceremonial pieces of clothing like the Warbonnets in the Aboriginal culture.
Costumes like these are designed around many cultural stereotypes and/or modified clothing that is supposed to have some significance to it. This is obviously not okay. There is a difference between appreciation and appropriation. When you take an aspect of someone else's culture, especially when you do not properly understand or respect it that is appropriation. It's obvious how the culture was not taken into consideration when designing and manufacturing these costumes and everyone must take a stand to this. Everyone has some sort of culture and is not right when someone is not able to take it seriously, even if it's for candy.
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