thesociologicalcinema:

Happy Halloween! Be Trick-or-treaters, not cultural misappropriators.

The Sociological Cinema was recently asked whether it would be racist to dress up as a Pocahontas this Halloween. The short answer is yes, dressing up like Pocahontas, or a person of any other racial minority, for Halloween is racist.

Here’s why: racism is the prejudice and discrimination that creates or reinforces a hierarchical system based on race. Empirical observations reveal that in the U.S. (and in many other countries) whites hold the lion’s share of power and resources, and a broad range of institutions operate to maintain this system of white supremacy. A racist behavior is one which contributes to preserving and reinforcing the white supremacist status quo, and dressing up like Pocahontas does precisely this.

Pocahontas was a real person; she is an ancestor of a People who are alive and vital today, despite being subjected to the genocidal practices of European settlers. Yet her contemporary image is little more than a white fantasy. Common depictions of her comport with white standards of beauty, she is routinely sexualized, and the clothing she is imagined to have worn is as inconsistent as the number of companies who have attempted to profit off her likeness.

By wearing Pocahontas as a costume, you play a part in racially fetishizing her image, and in your own way, you reassert the idea that the symbolic representations of historically marginalized groups exist for people to manipulate, or colonize, for amusement. Your Pocahontas costume is a subtle, yet powerful, pronouncement that Native People neither control the representations of themselves nor those of their ancestors; but costume-making companies and their customers do. When you buy the Pocahontas costume—when you wear the costume—you recreate the divide between those who control the representations of themselves and those whose representations are controlled. In short, you reinforce a part of that hierarchical system based on race, and that is the definition of racist behavior.