Halloween is upon us, and with this fantastical time of year comes the ritual of adults dressing up in costume as their favorite video game, superheroes, or celebrities. We’ve also had cosplay season, where adults dress up as their favorite video game and movie characters. For all of you who will be partaking in this ritual, I implore that you all have fun, eat, drink, and be as slutty as you want to be. However, here’s what I DON’T want you to do:
I don’t want you to include blackface or yellow face in your costume decision.
Now, I know there are going to be a lot of you who don’t want to hear that; these people who say that this would impugn on your God-given First Amendment right. To those people, I exercise my God-given First Amendment right and kindly say, “SHUT. THE. ENTIRE. HELL. UP.”
Listen, folks…we go through this every year. EVERY. SINGLE. YEAR. You decide you want to dress up as the popular hip hop artists of the year, and you decide to add to the costume by painting your face black and act as a stereotypical black person. Then, when black people DARE to get upset, you say, “Well, why are you so offended? It’s not offensive?” I invite those people to read the article on blackface; I promise you that it is very enlightening, and it will give you a history on why black people such as myself get so angry when you dress up in blackface.
Now, I hear you out there. I hear you saying, “Well, how will people know who I am?” If you have that issue, then your costume – to put it mildly – sucks. It’s a horribly designed costume, and you should probably go back to the drawing board. If you need to disguise your race for your costume, then the costume is horrible, and so are you. Let me give you a few examples here.
Say, for instance, you want to dress up as Michonne from The Walking Dead. There are two ways to do this. The first way is you can get some fake swords, find a respectable clone of the clothes that she wears, throw on a bandanna, and voila! Instant Michonne! People will instantly know who you’re supposed to be, because almost everyone watches The Walking Dead! Now, the second way is to do the exact same thing, only this time, you smear shoe polish on your face. That, my kind reader, is wrong. Period, point blank, end of story.
Now, just to let you know that it goes both ways, say you wanted to dress up as the Tenth Doctor. There are two ways to do this. The first way is to get a brown suit with light blue pinstripes, a light blue shirt, a brown tie with some sort of pattern on it – loosely tied, a brown rider’s coat, and some white Chuck Taylors. Oh, and throw in a sonic screwdriver as well. People who know the show will know who you are, and people who don’t will ask. Then, you tell them: I’m the Doctor. The other way – which is also the wrong way, is to do the exact same thing, only adding a liberal coating of flour to your face. That, my dear reader, is wrong as well. I know this costume works, because I’ve done it. And, I pulled it off without painting my face white.
Bottom line: I don’t care what you dress up as for Halloween. I don’t care who or what you want to cosplay as. My thing is that I want you to be smart about it. And, if you decide to paint your face another color to imitate another race, I want you to be ready for the repercussions of your action. I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it again: Freedom of Speech is a two-way street, and someone WILL call you out on it.
S/N #1: I am fully aware that the Special Forces members of the military wear face paint, but they have more than one color on their face, and it’s not as blatant.
S/N #2: I didn’t include pictures in this for two reasons: mostly because I don’t feel like looking for them, but also because I don’t want to open myself to lawsuits because someone thinks I’m slandering them personally. If you want pictures, look elsewhere.