As I’ve explained before at this time of year, there’s a War On Christmas, caused by hatred for Christianity, and a similar War on Easter. The War On Thanksgiving is caused by hatred of America, although a couple of atheists will also complain that it’s God who is being given Thanks at Thanksgiving.
But there are about five separate Wars On Halloween, and hey, only three out of five are caused by hatred of white people and/or America.
My list:
Canada’s National Post has an article on the last of these:
Parents, children and university students alike have in recent years observed a continuing expansion of which Halloween costumes are “inappropriate” and “offensive” attire. While at one point, restrictions may have been sanctioned upon costumes that were violent or overly gruesome, recently, both public schools and post-secondary institutions have restricted anything that might plausibly be remotely related to a racial, cultural, or gender identity, such as a ninja, a hula dancer, or a transgender person.
Julia Malott: Beware the Halloween diversity police — that ninja costume is 'cultural appropriation'
Other cultures are to be observed and celebrated, but never touched, October31, 2023
Julia Malott: Beware the Halloween diversity police — that ninja costume is 'cultural appropriation' https://t.co/cuLM7dIjVR pic.twitter.com/cT2M8yh9xV
— National Post (@nationalpost) October 31, 2023
My first thought was: if someone is dressed as a ninja, how would you know they weren’t Japanese?
The same also applies to various forms of Arab female dress. They cover the entire face and body—there might be a Muslim female in there, or there might not. (There might be an armed robber—the burka is frequently used a disguise in armed robbers in Philadelphia[Philadelphia and the Burqa Bandits by David J. Rusin PJ Media June 27, 2012]. )
And if someone was in really good blackface—say Robert Downey Jr, as Kirk Lazarus in the movie Tropic Thunder, below—how would you know you weren’t really discriminating against an actual black person?
Robert Downey Jr. Has No Regrets Over ‘Tropic Thunder’ Blackface: ‘It Blasted the Cap on the Issue’ https://t.co/2Spk1BgmGY via @indiewire
— bradley martin (@brmindustries) September 24, 2022
Robert Downey Jr. Has No Regrets Over ‘Tropic Thunder’ Blackface: ‘It Blasted the Cap on the Issue’, by Zack Sharf, IndieWire, January 21, 2020
Well, the answer in schools is that they know what the kids look like on non-Halloween days, just as we know that Robert Downey Jr, usually looks like this:
But what we’re talking about in these two particular Wars on Halloween (on blackface, and on dressing up as a geisha, or a hula girl) is particular lack of racial privilege which only applies to white people.
The National Post, above, says that one Canadian school board (in Ontario, across Lake Erie from Cleveland) has stated their policy like this:
This is the lesson ingrained by school boards nationwide, as exemplified by the Thames Valley District School Board’s policy stating that: “Students’ dress must not appropriate a culture that is not their own.” If there’s any doubt on the meaning of cultural appropriation, they have defined this for us: “the unauthorized use of another culture’s dance, dress, music, language, folklore, cuisine, traditional medicine, religious symbols, etc.”
The basic principle is that it's supposed to be wrong ("cultural appropriation") for white Americans to dress as people of color, or in the costumes of foreign lands, or using any non-Christian religious symbol. (Dressing up like naughty nuns doesn't count—they're considered white Christians, so fair game.) Sensitivities and microaggressions abound. Here is the cover of the School Board’s policy, linked above:
This is what led to a famous screaming match at Yale, when a young woman named Jerelyn Luther ranted at Silliman College Master Nicholas Christakis about an email asking Yale students to go completely mental over the costume question. Predictably, the students went completely mental, with Jerelyn Luther screaming at Christakis “Who the **** hired you?.” (It turns out she, though still a student, had been on the search committee that did hire him) [Meet the Privileged Yale Student Who Shrieked at Her Professor By Blake Neff Published on November 10, 2015].
So I would suggest that white people, instead of dressing like privileged non-whites (Japanese ninjas, Sioux Indians) and so on, dress as their—I won’t say victims—but the Americans who fought these people: US Marines from Edson’s Raiders on Bloody Ridge who fought the Japanese in WWII, the Indian fighters of the US Cavalry, and British Cavalry from the Indian Mutiny in 1857.
Ladies can dress as the women of the period. It’s cultural appropriation if a white woman dresses as Beyonce—not if she dresses as Scarlett O’Hara.
This last brings me to one more War On Halloween: feminism’s war on some people call “Slutty Halloween”—I.E. the desire of young women for reasons of their own, to dress up in very revealing costumes.
If young women have a desire to dress up and are worried about non-whites claiming cultural appropriation, I suggest dressing as an Oktoberfest waitress. Here are some examples, from previous Oktoberfest coverage—and no one cares if German customs are culturally appropriated:
In fact, even the Germans don’t care much about cultural appropriation.
No one, as I pointed out in a post called Oktoberfest Girls And Assimilation, is complaining that the second girl from the left isn’t really Bavarian.
However you dress, stay safe, and Happy Halloween.
