Halloween is rapidly approaching, which means people are growing desperate for costume ideas. You could be A. a wizard, or B. a clown, or maybe C. a geisha. Which of these is not like the other? I’ll give you a hint; one of them is a culture, not a costume. Ding-ding-ding! That’s right, it’s a geisha. Unless you're Japanese, you shouldn't be dressing as a geisha, especially if you don't understand the history of geishas. Halloween is notorious for blackface, which is the practice of painting one's face in dark makeup to appear black, eerily similar to Jim Crow. If you're wondering what the problem is with wanting to put on "bronzier" makeup, ask yourself if black people have the option to paint their faces white to better suit their needs, to avoid being shot by police.
Halloween does not give you a free pass to adopt the persona of another culture, no matter how cute you think it is. Unless you truly believe that the spirits of your loved ones come back to visit you every year in the early days of November, you don't have any reason to be painting your face for el Día de los Muertos. This is the culture and religion of people who are longing to celebrate with the souls of their loved ones, not an excuse for you to put on some "fun" makeup and get wasted.
So what's the difference between white people taking from other cultures and immigrants wearing jeans? The difference is that immigrants have no choice but to assimilate. If we were to walk around in abayas or kimonos rather than jeans and a t-shirt, the ostracism would be relentless. Immigrants and people of color are forced to give up their cultures to, at best, be accepted in American society, and in the most dire circumstances, for their personal safety. Cultural appropriation comes from a place of privilege, white people don't have to worry about systematic oppression.
The problem does not actually come from white people adopting aspects of other cultures; it comes from ethnic erasure. It's the fact that Kylie Jenner is praised for her acrylic nails, corn rows and big lips while black women have been the criticized for the same traits for decades. These trends are suddenly no longer "ghetto" or scary; all of a sudden, they’re cool and edgy because they're no longer on colored skin.
It is the gentrification of entire communities; you want to eat burritos and tacos but you don't want to enter Mexican restaurants owned by actual Mexicans. You don't want to be in the "sketchy" part of town; otherwise known as a neighborhood with a limited Caucasian population. It's eating Chipotle on Friday night while you demand that the people who introduced you to guacamole be deported.
Cultural appropriation undermines the large scale violence people from these cultures face. It fails to acknowledge that geishas have been viewed as sexual objects for centuries, and treated like it too. It forgets that Native Americans were scalped, with their "red skins" being offered as proof. It neglects that black women have been ridiculed for their natural hair since the beginning of America. Cultural appropriation is the practice of taking from other people's cultures without caring about what happens to them. It's wearing Timbs and listening to rap music without acknowledging that black lives matter. It's dressing up as a Native American while shutting your eyes against the history of genocide. You wanna dress like, walk like, talk like, dance like us, but you don't want to hear our stories or our struggles or our fears.
And it's not just people of color who face the brunt of cultural appropriation, but the LGBT community, too. Almost any slang word you can think of comes from black drag culture, whether it's shade or hunty, it's used often in everyday conversation. What we fail to recognize is the shame that has long been associated with not only drag culture, but gay culture as a whole. Cultural appropriation is wanting to beat your face, but barring people from using the restroom or getting married.
Cultural appropriation is not always major things either, like walking a fashion show in "Native American" lingerie, there are small acts of cultural appropriation every day. When I was younger, I would put on henna before Eid, and then avoid raising my hand until the color had faded, dreading being asked "what's that on your hand????" But all of a sudden, because Vanessa Hudgens does it, henna "tattoos" are cool, they're indie, they're Coachella. I can remember being made fun of for having thick eyebrows, but now that white women fill in their eyebrows, they're suddenly all the rage. And while people may claim that thick eyebrows have always been in, that’s easily debunked if you were to back to any 2000s movie and observe their over-plucked sperm-like eyebrows and thin waists. Being curvy, a centuries-old trait associated with women of color was frowned upon until recently; but now, everyone suddenly wants butt implants to get thicc. Cultural appropriation is taking characteristics of the oppressed and acting as if you invented them while they stay in the trenches you dug.
So, not only on Halloween, but every day ask yourself if you're participating in cultural appreciation or appropriation.
