A s we approach the most hallowed of eves, perhaps this is an opportunity to discuss something “spooky” that always crops up this time of year. Every Halloween we argue over whether it's racist for white people to wear a sombrero or a turban, or to dress up like Pocahontas, or to let their white kids wear the costumes of non-white fictional characters. This annual debate over the “cultural appropriation” of silly costumes is not only an embarrassing distraction, it’s actively harmful. We can start with the easy stuff and finish with the part that matters. If you stick with me, I promise there will be a sexy American president in knee-high stockings.

First, let’s get one thing straight: nearly everything is “appropriated.” Maybe you haven’t heard of the Sioux leader Young Man Afraid of His Horses (which should sort of have a conceptual comma, because it means he was so fearsome that his enemies were even scared of his horse). He was part of the only war in US history where the government surrendered to a tribe, which is kind of a big deal. You’ve probably heard of Crazy Horse, though, and at least one thing you think you know about the Old West is completely true: horses became an essential part of the culture. But horses aren’t native to the New World. They were first introduced by Spain. They’re not native to Iberia, either. They come from the Eurasian Steppe. This is a time-tested principle known among historians as “That’s neat! I want one!”

We all beg, borrow, and steal ideas from others and make something new. Everybody does it. Everybody always has. Take almost anything that you associate with a particular culture, and you can trace it back further to a different one. It’s not a bug; it’s one of the defining features of our species — remixing and remaking what wasn’t originally ours. It’s why I’m writing this in an alphabet adapted by the Italians, corrupted by the Germans, adopted by the English, and bastardized by America, mostly before any of these nations existed. Trying to combat that is like drawing an arbitrary line at the fall of the Roman Republic and saying, “This snapshot-in-time is now deemed authentic, and no, I don’t want to discuss Greece.”

Putting aside that Halloween is a time when even adults can dress up as a literal piece of shit and no one bats an eye, why is “appropriation” even a political and social issue? Why are we concerned about the (previously) Cleveland Indians and not the Fighting Irish? Why are we indifferent to slutty Abraham Lincoln (Yes, that’s a thing, and I don’t think that’s what he meant by “four score”), but if you dress as a slutty Indian chief, we’re going to need to have a talk about sensitivity? Never mind that most Native Americans don’t dress like Great Big Little Panther from Peter Pan. It’s more like this guy, who is mostly dressed like some dude, and happens to be a Cheyenne and Arapaho writer and winner of the 2019 American Book Award for a novel about his people. So if you want to dress as a real native, jeans and a t-shirt works for us.

The standard answer would be that there is a problematic power imbalance between a majority culture and a minority one, where using pieces of that minority culture is inherently oppressive. This narrative comes so close to getting the point, and yet so often seems to miss it.

It helps to parse it down to the most bedrock issue. When many in the Navajo Nation don’t have access to water, when black-majority cities don’t have access to water, maybe something like water is closer to the root of the problem. Maybe the real issue here isn’t the appropriation, but the imbalance in access to resources and quality of life.

But someone, somewhere, probably at a place like The Huffington Post, Teen Vogue, Buzzfeed, or NPR will sit in their climate-controlled office, with ready access to things like wifi and, well, water, and tell us how offensive a Halloween costume is. It’s important to get clicks — and people without the Internet don’t click on things.

I wish I could take more time to thank these outlets for their hard-hitting journalism, because apparently they will publish literally anything. I’d like to get more into silly things like this Kim Jong-un getup that didn’t make the list of offenses, but that would only feed back into the main thesis. The funny part is, most of the time the costumes aren’t actually offensive. If people were dressing up as klansmen and marching around in groups, yeah that could be upsetting. But being the wrong skin color while wearing a certain fashion style is not. And it’s not enough for someone to say “well, it offends me,” because literally everything offends someone. Whom exactly are we defending here? Whom are we actually helping?

A family without access to clean water doesn’t care what you wore to a Halloween party!

Take Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs. I believe somewhere near the base was being able to brush your teeth, and Halloween costumes aren’t on the pyramid. I know it’s easy for anyone to point to any problem and say there’s something else that’s worse. But part of what keeps us from seriously addressing those worse problems is the catharsis that people get from complaining about something superficial.

This phenomenon touches every facet of society. Being an “ally” has to work both ways. Whether fighting against racism or for LGBT rights, it rings hollow if it doesn’t bloom from the tree of human rights. The foundation of all this — you and me and all of us — is the radical idea that people are people. In the military, we don't train to carry only our own load; we train to carry our wounded brothers and sisters. It's the only way we're both getting out of here alive. Our abstract conceptions and all the history will still be there waiting after we address some initial concerns like “Are you warm? Are you safe? Are you thirsty?”

I beg you on bended knee. I will press my face to the dirt, if it helps. Please reject these culture war-numbing agents. Resist the temptation to be satisfied by moral outrage that doesn’t affect anyone’s material quality of life. Whatever kernel of legitimacy “cultural appropriation” may have originally had, it’s been turned into just another distracting wedge. The dead are gone and the living are trying. Somewhere right now, there’s a lady washing her baby bottles in water she brought home in a reused pickle jar. She’s saving it in a bucket so it can later be used to flush the commode. What is wrong with us, that in our desire for so-called social justice, we are more ashamed of our dress-up choices than we are of the jar and the bucket? Is that the costume I need to wear at the party to get some attention?

Published Oct 21, 2022
Updated Jan 28, 2023