Well, Halloween is around the
corner again, and the killjoys on the left are busy fretting that someone might
wear the wrong thing and this annoyed me enough to make me want to blog again. Yep, it’s the fear of “cultural appropriation”—the
idea that the only people who can enjoy another culture are people from the
ethnic/racial group that was historically associated with it. So, only Native Americans can wear native
American headdresses, I guess only Italian Americans can eat Pizza, and so on. It’s a unique topic where people claiming they
are opposed to racism regularly prove that they are actually super racist.
See, the first problem is that
for one to “appropriate” a culture—that is, commit theft—you have to believe it
is the exclusive property of... some person or group of people. Which then leads you down all kinds of racist
rabbit holes.
Don’t believe me? Well, let’s look at how Cosmo dealt with
this. I first became aware of their latest
tripe, by seeing this tweet.
Hey Parents: Maybe Don't Dress Your Kid Up As Moana This Halloween https://t.co/F1tppGs47f pic.twitter.com/NOMPW3OOFi— Cosmopolitan (@Cosmopolitan) October 23, 2017
Yep, it’s an article worried
about cultural appropriation. As you
probably know by now, Moana is based on Polynesian folklore and it’s a very
good movie. (Seriously, see it, if you
haven’t. You will thank me later.) Anyway, the Cosmo article confirms that it is
concerned primarily with white girls dressed up as the titular Disney Princess*
with this passage:
Chances are, you
have a child that is enamored with all things Disney and wants to be all of the
princesses. All of them! Especially Moana.
The New York Post
recently highlighted an article on raceconscious.org about how that’s probably
not a good choice if your kid is white, and revealed that “moms are freaking
out” over the culturally appropriative costume.
