Sometimes people dress up for halloween without realizing they may be appropriating someone's culture, and other times it can be on purpose in an offensive way such as black face or abilesm. Even in party city, I saw many costumes with labels such as “gypsy” or “mexican” and native costumes. These are offensive because you can wear these costumes and take them off at night, without having to wear said costume the rest of your life while those people live with labels. There is a huge difference between dressing up as a firefighter, a cop, a queen rather than a ‘Native American’ or ‘Hula girl’. They are not a job or a character, they aren't something to make into a mass market product. If white europeans/Americans had an ongoing culture with the way they dressed or appeared and other people wore it as a joke, white people would see it very disrespectful to the culture. See how it is? Yet their culture continues to be sold and treated like a costume without most of them knowing what the actual culture is. You can avoid appropriation by making sure your outfit doesn't invalidate someone's culture, or ethnicity.
What do you think about appropriation?
I think appropriation is offensive because it is invalidating someone else's culture or background and typically Americans do not have culture.
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Do you think stores should sell these offensive costumes?
No, they should be pulled off the market because if we continue to appropriate culture we will not learn how to respect other cultures.
Replies
Great topic choice Catherine. With only a little over a page of comments, be sure to comment to most of them. I also think your summary could be a bit longer.
As a white American I haven't ever seen appropriation of my own race. With that being said my opinion is very small in the grand scheme of things and should be taken worth a grain of salt. So here goes: I think that the offence being taken to cultural oppropriation is over the top. People will always make cruel jokes about every culture and every race out there. I do think that it's inappropriate to wear clothes stareotyped with other races, but I also think that's a conclusion that each person has to come to themselves. I feel that taking Gypsy, Native American, Mexican, exc. costumes out of the stores won't accomplish much of anything. The issue with cultural appropriation is the mindset, not just the action of displaying it. Viewing everyone of one group of people (one race or one culture) is the root of the problem. That being said I am not sure how exactly one would go about fixing that issue, so maybe removing these costumes from the store is a step in the right direction.
I agree with you. I understand if a little kid who was too young to be educated wanted to wear these types of costumes, but they shoudn't want these costumes in the first place because they shouldn't exist. If you were wearing an outfit coming from a specific culture, like perhaps a certain Native American tribe, you should only be doing it out of respect and if you educated yourself on the background. People that don't see this as a problem are stuck behind a fine line of priveledge.
I believe that little kids should be able to choose on what they want to dress up as for halloween and that they should still be able to sell these costumes. This is not right because the past how many years many people have not complained until now they all start complaining about "offensive" costumes.
thats actually completely false, people have complained but nobody takes us seriously until social media picks it up. little kids cant buy costumes on there own, so thats totaly the parents choice.
Halloween is a fun tradition for many families and children. When little kids dress up I do not think there is anything to take to offensively because they don't know any better. On the contrary, when you are old enough to realise what you are doing is inappropriate or disrespectful they should not be doing it. In order to respect all cultures I think that these items should be pulled off the market.
I completely agree with you and how harmful this practice is as well as the horrible appropriation going on without many people seeing anything wrong with it. I think there should be a mass ban on offensive stereotypical clothing and appropriating clothing to other cultures.
I think if it is a little kid dressing up who just wants to get candy, it shouldn't be taken offensively. I do think that if someone older were to dress in one of these costumes, people could take offense to it and they should learn from that and not do it again. I think it's okay for stores to sell them for little kids who have been planning costumes who don't know how it can be offensive.
I agree with you to an extent. The parents bought that costume and saw nothing wrong with appropriating a differing culture. I do believe the child is innocent, however, the blame lands on the parents for being ignorant and not making time to educate how harmful these costumes are.
It's offensive but it is everyday life. People have been doing it for years now. I don't have an opinion because it's still going to happen. Sure its not appropriate but people will find their own way to get ahold of the costume anyways.
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