Hallowe’en is my favourite annual holiday. Something about having a holiday that centers around creativity makes my heart go pitter-patter. Every year, I enjoy coming up with a novel Hallowe’en costume idea and making a one-of-a-kind costume, put together with thrift store finds or made with a hot glue gun and some fabric.
Yet, Hallowe’en is also the time when the racial stereotypes and political incorrectness come out and play. In the rush to find something “unusual” to be for Hallowe’en, too often folks fall back on a racist or offensive costume idea. The “it’s all in good fun” nature of Hallowe’en is somehow expected to excuse discriminatory and dehumanizing racism. And I think it taints a wonderful holiday.
This past weekend, I went to a local store to help electroman put together his Hallowe’en costume. The particular store we were in was a large, well-known vintage store in Tucson, that sells clothes dating as far back as the 1900’s. Electroman was trying on items while I wandered the store searching for other choice finds.
On the other side of a rack of clothes I was examining, three tween girls were thumbing through some pre-made costumes. They were conversing about what they wanted to be for Hallowe’en; not an unusual conversation since everyone in the store was trying to put together a costume. Then, one girl turned to the others and said: “I should be an Asian for Hallowe’en”.
Excuse me?!?
How, exactly, can you be “Asian” for Hallowe’en? Do you smear yellow paint on your face, pull your eyes back in a Miley Cyrus “chinky eye”, dye your hair black, and greet everyone with a hearty “ni hao”? Do you wear one of the five thousand chi pao that vintage stores readily carry? And how is being “Asian” an appropriate thing to be for Hallowe’en? Are we some mythical creature like a ghost, a goblin, or a witch?
Could you imagine opening your door on Hallowe’en eve to see a group of kids trick-or-treating? “Oh, you must be a werewolf! And you’re Buzz Lightyear! And how about that? You’re a vampire. And you? Why how quaint, you’re a Japanese!”
I had heard the comment before I saw the girls. I wheeled around immediately, furious. But, by the time I turned, the girls were gone — they had disappeared into the crowds of people in the store and by the time I caught sight of them again, they were vanishing back into the streets of Tucson.
Frustrated, I returned to Electroman, and practically tossed clothes in his face. For the rest of the afternoon, I was seething that I hadn’t had the opportunity to confront the girls. I rehearsed in my mind the thousand and one scenarios in which I would have confronted the girls in a thousand and one different ways. In a few, I deliver a witty and sardonic one-liner before turning away in disgust. Or, I am calm, professorial, and I make the incident a “teaching moment”. In others, the girls get defensive and it all comes to blows. In still others, each girl runs away sobbing. Or, in my favourites, I handily launch each of the girls one-at-a-time through the display windows of the store; there’s blood and glass everywhere and I go to jail. Yet, I had no outlet with which to express my anger; the girls were gone and I was left the victim of hit-and-run racism.
They say that we live in a post-racial America. Yesterday, you sure could’ve fooled me.
