I'm a Culture, not a Costume

[sephirajo]

Comments

[jettakd]

I hate that so many people have been treating this like a joke or as if it offends their delicate sensibilities not to wear a racist costume without getting called out on it :(

[romp]

I don't doubt you but who is doing this? People defending their "reckneck" status? College students?

[maladaptive]

Mostly college students... IIRC this went up on BoingBoing and people were adamant that it's no more racist than people dressing up as, say, a lawyer. Been seeing similar arguments pretty much any time this gets posted.

[romp]

Wow, that's a pretty educated mainstream audience, I would think.

I often assume we've been making steady progress since I started paying attention to the culture--clearly I need reminding that the work is constant. Damn, these people are exhausting.

[maladaptive]

Self-centeredness and bigotry knows no educational bounds, unfortunately. They're smart, but they're hardly thoughtful over at BB a lot of the time when you get outside copyright/tech issues.

[fickery]

The degree of not-getting-it on BB kind of shocked me initially too, but then I remembered RaceFail and stopped being surprised.

[romp]

I don't usually expect education=understanding of privilege but I thought they'd at least have covered this at freshman orientation. Naive, I know.

[roseofjuly]

Someone said in the comments of the article I read, "That's like saying dressing like a grunge rocker or a cowboy is offensive to white people."

My jaw literally dropped. Talk about not getting it on so many levels.

[fuckfrosti]

Oh Jesus, everyone's doing this. Look at all the parodies in the comments on the subjects at the mothership:

http://ohnotheydidnt.livejournal.com/63895460.html

[jettakd]

There was also some stupid comments on CafeMom cause I went there to read the Bloggess, saw this clicked, and the comments were all pearly clutching middle class white ladies who were so offended that they weren't supposed to dress as geisha.

[fog_dancer]

I read similar comments on jezebel, someone compared the geisha costume to a cowboy costume and wondered about self-censorship etc. I shed a tear for the oppression of the American WASPs.

[nicole_anell]

Oh for god's sake. IF YOU HAVE A RACIST COSTUME YOU SHOULD CENSOR YOURSELF.

(Not capslocking at *you* obviously, but the people saying this. I saw someone defending the blackface one because she's supposed to be a specific person, L'il Wayne, not all black people! Wowwww.)

[etherealtsuki]

It makes me cry/laugh when they get hurt because they have to think about what's not offensive and they can't do anything because it limits their ~freedom of expression~.

[roseofjuly]

Totally missing the point that there were cowboys of color.

[fog_dancer]

Uh, me? I don't really know what you mean...in the comments I read the people who were responding in said way identified as white Americans (so I might be wrong about the protestant part, and I apologize if I did).

[roseofjuly]

Not you, the comment.