Ghouls, Ghosts & Racists.

aside from the obvious, my issue is inability of (some) white people to conceptualize with how irrevocably racist it is to dress up in blackface. this just attests to the fact that our education system is flawed & it saddens me that most people don't understand from a historical perspective why this is wrong. I mean, if you don't know what a minstrel show is & you haven't ever been outraged by jump Jim Crowe & the antics of Thomas D. Rice, I wouldn't expect you to fully understand the implications of your actions. needless to say, fully rooted in understanding or not, empathy/social awareness should help you draw the conclusion that it's inappropriate to paint your face black as a costume. 

let me digress: the fact that people think they can throw on a sombrero, a geisha outfit, Indian feathers or paint their face black as a "costume" speaks volumes about privilege in this country. you never see children of color/people of color painting their faces white in order to emulate a white character (which up until a few years ago was every Disney princess) because that's the "norm." these costumes perpetuate racial ignorance & stereotypes & celebrate the disenfranchisment of entire communities of people. marginalization continues to exist because we allow it to with this type of Tom foolery. when people don't tell Miley to chill, tell their friends that blackface is inappropriate & go galavanting on cinco de mayo without quantifying the effects of their actions, they're doing a disservice to the existence of culture/humanity in general. 

the Trayvon Martin costume was anything but funny. It served as a vile representation of the willful ignorance that still exists in America. not only were they personifying the murder of someone's CHILD, but they were comfortable enough to do so in blackface. I don't fault these white people for these costumes, I fault society. if there weren't "trayvon" shooting targets being marketed & sold to shoot at in gun ranges, jokes circulating about his death & if he weren't stereotyped & vilified as a "thug" during the entire trial, these white people wouldn't feel so comfortable. a costume is fictitious, yes, but it's also a representation of who we are & what we value/express. what some European Americans are comfortable expressing is shameful.