It’s almost that time of the year, Colored People Appropriation Day Halloween, which marks the time seasonally where one takes stock of their cuff season Q1 standings, thank the based gods that at least The Craft is on Netflix (eventually, Hocus Pocus) and endure love letters on Twitter to the trash that is candy corn. Halloween has the interesting distinction of being perhaps THE Whitest holiday on record (except for maybe Columbus Day) and peaks of Whiteness are on Mt. Kilimanjaro levels. Before we go any further, let me appease the naysayers who counter, “How is Halloween ‘White’? Everyone loves Halloween!” I mean, I guess. Sure. And now that I’ve paid obligatory homage to faux universality and false cultural equivalents (which are mostly consistent with peak levels of Whiteness, but I’m too blessed to be petty today), let’s get to the realness.
This shit is disgusting, no? Well, welcome to what Halloween feels like for The Coloreds on October 31st and the other 364 days of cultural appropriation that’s been going on for the past, 400 years or so. Needless to say, colored people just don’t really check for Halloween like that. And despite the literal manuals to helping White People Do Halloween Better, it still remains an incredibly stressful 24 hour period. Anything could happen. Blackface does could happen. Slutty Native American for sure could happen. Black body and Obama effigies swinging from trees is a little too Strange Fruit comfort for most. The majority of us in The Black Delegation are walking around with tight chests, swearing before Gawd in hopes that no bro takes the fist bumps and “What’s up brotha?!” (that they have been forcing every Black person they encounter to partake in with them since 2008, btw) as an excuse for fist bumps and “What’s up my nigga!” in Bob Marley costume. Because friendships would be lost and asses would be have to be had. So, coupled with the quotidian stress of trying to not die in colored skin, the fact that all the Black people, die early in horror movies, all Asian chicks are assumed to be “Happy Ending” geishas, every Latino is “esse” for the day, Native Americans are remembered for one day and we’re not welcome to trick-or-treat in certain neighborhoods anyway, we usually just let The White Delegation have it.
Man, listen.
The uncomfortableness of racial identities being appropriated and shat upon aside, watching White people being White on Halloween can be entertaining. “Did you see that crazy ass White boy wearing that toilet on his head?!” It’s an opportunity to frankly, watch the spectacle of being White from an uninvolved distance. To White people, Halloween is the one day that they have to step away from the pressures of sitting atop almost every cultural, sexual, racial, religious and economic hierarchy and be someone else. I mean, we get it. Because who has the will to dress for Halloween when you have to worry about Miley Cyrus dressing up as you the other 364 days out of the year? Meanwhile, for “the others”, it’s the spectacle of watching privileged people who need a reprieve from said privilege, attempt to out-do one another in epic battles of satirical irony and ridiculousness in which a great deal of money, time, effort and cultural tone deafness are used to express and meet these ends. Imagine that! And since living while melanin-ed exhausts peak levels of irony for most of us in the Colored Delegations, it’s more amusing to watch White people put so much effort into making trivial matters be so vital and competitive. And nothing more clearly reflects this than Halloween DIY costumes. Like this one below.
NO FLEX ZONE
THEY KNOOOOW BETTAAA
This chick dressed up as quinoa. Quinoa. (At first, I was pumped because I thought she was a box of Kix, but whatever.) The problematic consumption politics of Brooklyn hipsters eating quinoa and leaving impoverished South Americans to starve aside, this is actually a brilliant costume. It’s quite creative. I mean, the levels of White going on right now, in this moment are so fleek, this is intimidating to non-voting members of the White delegation. The viscose/tissue/faux threadbare t-shirt turned skirt is just rich. Not that she was done there.
ain’t nobody more organic than my clique.
Captain Kale. That’s right, that green leaf that taste likes tree bark everyone’s putting into their smoothies these days. Because, why stop at quinoa when, with enough people to dress up as seitan and coconut water, you could be a whole vegan meal? I mean, this is why Halloween for us non-Whites stays amusing. We marvel at the time, money and waste use of privilege all on spectacle and display for Halloween. If you’ve got enough power in society to dress up as Whole Foods without being reminded that you can’t afford to shop there or it’s gentrifying the hell out of your neighborhoods, most of us would probably just buy whole foods, or buy Whole Foods (stock). It’s a wealth/privilege/sense of humor disconnect. But on the very bright side, she’s not dressing up as a distressed messenger/sex slave of ISIS. (Because there will be some smart ass undergrad who will try it.) And if this peak of corny, yet harmless levels of Whiteness is the alternative to Trayvon Martin “costumes”, I’m here for it.
DIY how-to for Quinoa Woman. Just in case there are, “inquiring” minds.
The Maroon Colony 