There’s much wrong with Halloween today. From slutty nun costumes to Walmart having to pull a sexy leopard toddler costume, plenty makes you want to avert your eyes on what should be a fun-filled holiday. But an undercurrent of racism?
Last week, Pottery Barn felt obliged to apologize and pull two Halloween costumes from its stores: a kimono and a sushi-chef outfit. An Asian-American civil-rights group had complained the outfits were culturally offensive.
It’s hard to argue when someone says they’re offended, but it’s just not right that these costumes are deemed racist when they plainly aren’t.
What, exactly, is racist about a sushi chef costume, even with the Japanese flag on the chef hat? Would a French chef outfit, complete with French flag and even a Frenchy moustache, cause the same outrage?
A kimono is traditional Japanese dress. Is a kilt, the traditional Scottish outfit, also offensive? Have we gotten so fearful in our culture that we have to treat any charge of racism so irrationally?
When our son was born eight months ago, my husband (a big Knicks fan) outfitted him in as much Knicks gear as a baby could ever need. For Halloween, he wanted to put the little guy in a No. 21 jersey and get him a flattop wig so he could be Iman Shumpert.
It turns out they don’t make flattop wigs for babies, so the costume didn’t work out. What was startling, though, was that when we’d talk about it with friends, they’d lower their voices would and ask, “Isn’t that a little racist?”
Is it? How?
Charges of racism carry a lot of weight in our society, ending careers and ruining reputations. It’s not an accusation we should be lobbing about lightly.
So it’s particularly important to point out that, no, dressing as a sushi chef isn’t racist. We need the word to actually mean something so we can point out that something is, indeed, racist.
The dummies in Florida who dressed up as George Zimmerman and a blackface Trayvon Martin weren’t only tasteless but racist. The three Chicago guys who dressed up as bloodied Asiana Airlines pilots would have been just tacky if they hadn’t also added racist nametags with Asian-mocking names.
And actress Julianne Hough in blackface as a character from the show “Orange Is the New Black” is yes, racist.
It’s understandable that Pottery Barn, eager to avoid controversy, pulled the costumes. But the rest of us have some duty to call out the sushi-chef accusers.
As a society, we need to limit charges of racism to actual racism. If everything becomes racist, the word ceases to mean anything at all.