Cultures, not costumes

Its Halloween! October truly is the best month of the year to play dress-up and have fun. However, as we become more aware of social justice, it is important to know where to draw the line between simply wearing a costume, and appropriating a culture.

To put it simply, cultural appropriation is adopting certain elements of a culture by people who do not belong to that group. It is seen as disrespectful when things that are sacred or culturally significant in one culture are taken out of context and used casually by people who are from a different one. It strips minority groups of the things that make up their identities and turns those things into novelty items. 

Cultural appropriation must not be confused with appreciation of the diversity of cultures or assimilation, and it is possible to incorporate parts of other cultures in a genuine way, without being disrespectful.

With regards to costumes and dressing up, a common look for this time of year is the Mexican “sugar skull” – while it may seem like the perfect makeup idea for a fancydress costume, the fact that the tradition itself is known as Day of the Dead, or Dia de Muertos, and focuses on gatherings of family and friends in order to pray for and remember those that have died, to support their spiritual journey, means that it should not be used as a fancy dress. 

In other words, another culture's traditions shouldn't be your costume. 

Therefore, to use an element of this deeply spiritual and traditional ritual and take it out of context is seen as cultural appropriation, and should not be done. This is just one common example; there are plenty other ways people reduce cultures to mere costumes: dressing up as geishas or in Native American headdresses, or anything that perpetuates misinformed stereotypes. It's safer to avoid culture-based outfits than to attempt one and offend someone. 

We live in such a diverse and multicultural society that there's no way to avoid sharing things from other cultures, and that's fine. No one is saying you should not eat Mexican food or that you are not allowed to watch anime unless you are Japanese. 

The core argument of cultural appropriation is that it commodifies and fetishises aspects of minority groups without them being able to benefit from it. We have a plethora of options for outfits that don't rely on another culture's identity. It's important to have that respect, because we certainly don't like seeing people taking elements from our own culture without any understanding of what it means.