"Dude, thats racist!"

Today in advisory we talked about halloween costumes that are and are not acceptable.  The usual inappropriate costume ideas were mentioned, the gangster, the nun, the indian and so on.  Our advisor telling us the facts and rules really brought about a very interesting debate about racism.  When our advisor had gotten through a few of the pictures of inappropriate costumes, on kid stood up and asked, "wait what is racist about these costumes?"  "Well, they depict another race, of course they are racist!"  His response really got me thinking, I feel like racism is like walking on thin ice constantly watching where you step so that you don't fall through.  The word is completely overused to the point where even mentioning a person of another race immediately makes listeners think "that's racist."  The definition of the word racism is "a belief or doctrine that inherent differences among the various human races determine cultural or individual achievement, usually involving the idea that one's own race is superior and has the right to rule others."  Thus simply portraying or referencing another race isn't racist, it becomes racist when you portray that race in an unequal and negative light.  Yet the school has simply declared and reference to another race to be racist.  The school refuses to recognize that there is a major difference between portraying someone of another race and portraying someone of another race based on stereotype.  For example, I have a friend who wanted to be Barrack Obama for Halloween.  He proposed to wear an Obama mask, and his advisors response was that he couldn't because he was portraying another race.  That seemed absurd to me, he isn't portraying another race in a negative light, he's simply dressing as another human being.  Thus the school makes no distinction between for example, the costume shown in the costume shown in the top left and the costume shown in the bottom left, even though one is a stereotype and the other is simply a mask that is meant to look like the president of the United States.  Furthermore, I wonder how the school would react if I came to school dressed in the costume shown to the right.  As you can see the costume doesn't portray another race, the costume means to portray someone of my race, yet it is clearly racist.  It takes the stereotypes of a race and accentuates them to portray that race in a negative light.  But by the school rules that were presented to us in advisory, this is not racist at all and a totally fine costume to wear on Halloween. 


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