It's Not Just a Costume

It’s that time of year when kids get dressed up as their favorite characters from movies, television, and books.  They descend on America’s neighborhoods with parents and guardians in tow in the hunt for the perfect stash of candy.  I fondly remember dressing up and doing the same thing with my parents.  As this cherished tradition comes around every year we see some very creative costumes emerge.  Unfortunately, somewhere along the way the innocence and fun that Halloween brought us as kids, now contains a sobering reminder of a social ill that plagues our society.

I won’t sit behind a keyboard vilifying those who have decided to don blackface as a part of their Halloween costume because there are countless other blogs you can go to if that’s what you want to read.  While I believe that it is offensive for people to dress in blackface I also believe that there is a larger picture that needs to be viewed.  Also I believe that there is a more fruitful approach that can be taken before we simply attack those that are ignorant of the ramifications of their costumes.

I’ve done a lot of trainings, and led many discussions about diversity and cultural sensitivity.  Through these experiences I’ve come to find that many people (of all ethnicities) believe we live in a post racial world.  We don’t see the things in our day-to-day lives that we see when we look at newsreels of the 60’s and 70’s so there are many people that believe that we are somehow safe from racism now.  It’s far from the truth, but it’s from these beliefs that people choose blackface as part of a Halloween costume because “it doesn’t matter anymore”, or “I’ve got (insert any ethnicity here) friends so what I do can’t be seen as racist”.

These thoughts are proof that we ALL, not just white people, not just blacks, etc. have failed to educate our society and that we have a lot of work to do.  We tell people it’s wrong, and jump on a bandwagon about how they should be sorry for their costume by saying it’s racist and offensive, but often I don’t believe we go deep enough into why.  Despite the inevitable that some people will do it for mal intent, we all as a society need to continue the conversations beyond it being wrong and educate people on why it’s wrong.  Engage people who aren’t aware of why it’s so wrong in a meaningful dialogue about what blackface is, what it was historically and why it is still offensive today. 

Quite often people are scared to engage in meaningful dialogues so it’s a challenge, but it makes it that much more crucial to have them around these topics.  People are afraid to reveal what they don’t know and sometimes we aren’t even aware what we don’t know; this is true for all people of all ethnicities.  That is why when issues such as blackface costumes come up we must use them to come together and use it as an opportunity to learn from each other and talk about why it is offensive. 

Embracing a solution-oriented position I can only hope that the knowledge shared will spread.  In doing so I’m not encouraging people that are offended to negate the gravity of the situation, nor downplay emotions about it.  Instead I’m encouraging them to channel it all to do something positive to help prevent it from happening in the future and raise awareness.   If you aren’t aware of why it’s so offensive, hopefully the links below can shed some light on the topic and help you have your own informed conversations about blackface.   

http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/amex/foster/sfeature/sf_minstrelsy.html

http://blackhistory.com/content/61585/blackface