If someone is dressing in offensive racial stereotypes I think it is fine to call them assholes for it. They have the right to do it, I have the right to say they are being racist jerks.

If there's a big problem somewhere with people making fun of other races, I don't see the issue with writing an article or letter to the editor or whatever. I don't think it is nannyish. We aren't a nation of wusses who need to sit back as racists racist.

That said, banning them is another issue. Racists gonna racist, better it be in the open.

The real problem here is some people's lack of a sense of humor. They feel butthurt when somebody laughs at their chosen or imagined identity, so they dub it racism, or equivalently blasphemy, and pretend that the laugher did something wrong. Piffle.

This is where the whole controversy over blackface comes from, too. Blackface is nothing more than clown makeup that makes fun of black people.

No person, group, or belief is too sacred to be laughed at. If you think it is, you are the problem.

Yeah, if you're adding insult to injury and kicking people when they are down you're an asshole.

If you're entrenching negative stereotypes about groups that are being discriminated against or targeting, you're an asshole.

I do see situations in which you can laugh at other groups, if you're laughing about things that are so true about a group... like, haha, the French are always on strike or whatever. But someHalloween costumes are making fun of cultures about things that aren't even true about the cultures, or are aspects that have historically been used as excuses to be violent against them.

There's also a difference between jibing each other between equals, and between vanquisher and vanquished.

The problem is that modern liberalism isn't called out for what it is: a system of beliefs that rejects the scientific method, has a cast of saints and sinners, original sin, a devil (the Patriarchy), heresy rules, redemption, witch hunts, and for the orthodox, dietary restrictions (veganism). In other words, it's a nontheistic religion. If it were widely called out as a religion, the rest of us could simply say we don't belong to it and don't want it shoved in our faces.

Too many feigned hurt by people who aren't in the supposedly offended group, but by people who want a little bit of power by sharing some kind of offense... lame.

Nicole Arbour had a good vid just the other day about Halloween & Costumes...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Rcvx_q_T6hE

Making fun of other people's foibles is not "racist"and frankly to claim it is is simply bizarre. Trying to claim that you can't do it to the "vanquished" or the "poor" or whatever is just patronising racism - you think the Japanese give a stuff if a few kids dress up as samurais? How helpless and pathetic do you think the Japanese are? Or the Zulus or the descendants of the Aztecs or whomever? Nobody is dressing up on Halloween and thinking "oh, this means the white race is superior". It's just self-indulgent fantasies by people who desperately want everyone to know who "woke" they are. It's about you, not those you claim to be helping.

"The world is full of contention and contentious people. They will not tell you the time of day or day of the month without their little display of hostility. … It is more than a reflex, I think. It is an affirmation of importance. Each one is saying, “I can afford to be nasty to you because I don’t need any favors from you, buster.” It is also, perhaps, a warped application of today’s necessity to be cool. … If I were King of the World I would roam my kingdom in rags, incognito, dropping fortunes onto the people who are nice with no special reason to be nice, and having my troops lop off the heads of the mean, small, embittered little bastards who try to inflate their self-esteem by stomping on yours. I would start the lopping among post-office employees, bank tellers, bus drivers, and pharmacists. I would go on to checkout clerks, bellboys, prowl-car cops, telephone operators, and U.S. Embassy clerks. By God, there would be so many heads rolling here and there, the world would look like a berserk bowling alley." ~ John D. MacDonald (The Empty Copper Sea)

Dressing up in fake Native American clothes isn't making fun of their foibles. It's making fun of things that aren't even them and playing on stereotypes that got used in their extermination. I mention them in particular because they often say they wish we wouldn't.

And I never said you *couldn't*, I said it makes you an asshole. If your ability to do something is based on my not thinking you are an asshole you have bigger problems.

willingness to accept that people can hold good faith views on both sides

Hah! When one paints oneself as being on the right side of history and being a genuinely good person then the other side must be at best not very bright and at worst literally Hitler!!!!1111!

Shades of grey? bah, we have no room for shades of grey. Or even gray.

Question: is a little white girl who dresses up as Moana a racist?

If the answer is "yes", then is the movie "Moana" also racist? and if not, why not?

It's all f*cking ridiculous. If a little white kid wants to dress up as Moana or Tiana, what the hell does it matter? It's a little kid for crying out loud. First off, it's Halloween, it's a day to dress as something other than your every day self. Do you admire Frida Kahlo? Dress up like her, man, woman, boy, girl, white, black, I don't care. If that's your jam, you should be able to express yourself.

I saw something the other day that really pissed me off - basically unless your Hispanic, you can't eat tacos or drink tequila, because that's cultural appropriation. F YOU! I love tacos, and I love good tequila!

I'm so sick and tired of cultural appropriation, of white blame, and of white shame. I am by no means racist, but keep calling me one, and I might have to prove you right.

There is a big difference between "blackface" and painting your face black or to look like a black person. Blackface was a minstrel style that was definitely racist. A college student painting his face black to match his team's color is an expression of school spirit. A professor using makeup to look like her Dr. Damon Tweed is a tribute to a black man.

Do we not want children to have heroes of another race? 'cause this is the way to ensure they don't.

Can a little white boy fantasize about being Cam Newton when he grows up? Or The Rock? Can a little black boy fantasize about being Tom Brady and winning six Super Bowls?

Can a little white girl fantasize about being Venus or Serena Williams when she grows up? Or FloJo? Can a little black girl fantasize about being Danica Patrick (preferably a Danica that actually wins a race)?

Or are we trying to limit our children to heroes of the "right" race? No racism in that.

There is someone somewhere who will object to any possible costume unless you dress as a toaster. Yes, even "real" witches object to you dressing as a witch. Where can you go for approval? Is there an office somewhere? And what business does a university have telling adults (including married students in their 30s who might even have kids) what costume to wear. In the old in loco parentis days on campus they only supervised your visits to the dorms.
""absolutely appropriate" for kids to dress up as the Polynesian princess if it is "done in the spirit of love"" --and how exactly do you verify this? Do you interrogate the 8 year olds on the street? Kids totally lack the knowledge to wear any costume "appropriately". The 8 year old doesn't even know about Indian extermination, they just think an indian costume is cool (or was the only one left in the store). Probably the only knowledge they have about Polynesia is from the Moana movie.

OK, OK, I'll stop appropriating your culture, but I'm taking my smallpox shots back. in fact I'm taking back *all* immunizations while I'm at it. They're part of my ethnic heritage and you can't have them

Cultural appropriation is about telling white people what to do. And as I've said before, the only acceptable response to the cultural appropriation police, and all other SJWs, is "Get fucked."

...Last week, Aulii Cravalho, the actress who played Moana in the Disney movie, declared it "absolutely appropriate" for kids to dress up as the Polynesian princess if it is "done in the spirit of love" and "for the little ones who just want to dress up as their favorite heroine."

Not good enough. If someone wants to dress up as Moana, even if it is not done in the spirit of love, even if they want to mercilessly parody and lampoon the character, that is also fine.

Silly humans.

Everyone knows that the only children allowed to dress up as a any Disney Princess regardless of race are Boys.

Aulii Cravalho doesn’t have points from her role in Moana, besides her residuals as a SAG member. So, her suggesting that kids wearing a costume actually does her no financial good.

Let's see if I've got this straight.

If we copy them, we're guilty of cultural appropriation.

If they copy us, we're guilty of cultural imperialism.

Is that about right?