A Canadian professor speaks out about culturally appropriative costumes, just in time for Halloween
After Megyn Kelly made a comment on her NBC show about how she felt that blackface was not that bad or offensive, there has understandably been quite a bit of backlash. With Halloween is less than a week away, a professor at Simon Fraser University in British Columbia, Canada is taking this opportunity to talk about costumes and cultural appropriation.
George Nicholas of SFU told the Vancouver Sun that Kelly's comments about blackface were disturbing, but offer a teaching moment to those who don't know about cultural appropriation.
Cultural appropriation is the idea of taking traditional fashion, apparel or parts of appearance that are traditional to a minority group (such as an indigenous tribe) and making them into a costume or "look" for a dominant group. One example of this is when people dress up as Native Americans on Halloween and sport a traditional feathered headdress.
"'Western society has, for centuries, turned to the cultural heritage of Indigenous peoples worldwide as a source of inspiration for stories, art, architecture, and more,'” Nicholas told the Vancouver Sun.
He also noted that while people may not have malicious intentions, the consequences of wearing a culture as a costume can be highly damaging and perpetuate stereotypes.
I think this conversation is important to have always, but is particularly important with Halloween coming up. A culture is not a costume.
George Nicholas of SFU told the Vancouver Sun that Kelly's comments about blackface were disturbing, but offer a teaching moment to those who don't know about cultural appropriation.
Cultural appropriation is the idea of taking traditional fashion, apparel or parts of appearance that are traditional to a minority group (such as an indigenous tribe) and making them into a costume or "look" for a dominant group. One example of this is when people dress up as Native Americans on Halloween and sport a traditional feathered headdress.
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| This illustrates the example listed above. |
"'Western society has, for centuries, turned to the cultural heritage of Indigenous peoples worldwide as a source of inspiration for stories, art, architecture, and more,'” Nicholas told the Vancouver Sun.
He also noted that while people may not have malicious intentions, the consequences of wearing a culture as a costume can be highly damaging and perpetuate stereotypes.
I think this conversation is important to have always, but is particularly important with Halloween coming up. A culture is not a costume.
This is such an interesting topic to me because it is something that I deal with everyday in the sense that I feel like I constantly have to explain why something is wrong to my white friends. For example one of my teammates who is white said she wanted to dress up as Pocahontas for Halloween. I happened to be with the two other black kids on my team and in a synchronized voiced we looked at her sitting across the table from us and said No! After explaining that she had plenty of white characters to choose from and told her that we were protecting her from the backlash that she would face if she posted a picture of her imitating a Native American woman, she understood that she was wrong.
ReplyDeleteThis is a very interesting topic for me as well and I think shows the impact that even people who sometimes may not have bad intentions can be participating in a behavior that has intense implications on marginalized communities. This goes to show that people need to be more educated and understand how culture impacts many things we do. I like how the teacher you referenced used this as a learning lesson to educate people about what is inappropriate for Halloween.
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