The Courier-Journal, a local newspaper near the University of Louisville, recently published an online gallery of photos taken on campus. In one photo, U of L President James Ramsey’s Halloween party is featured. In it, he and a group of about twenty partygoers are all similarly dressed in costumes much like the one worn by the white lady in the photo below.
In a response that should have been anticipated by virtually everyone involved, the photo came under fire as racist and offensive. University staff under President Ramsey has since offered an apology, expressing:
“Our deep regret for the hurt this experience has caused.”
It is the response to the apology, however, that inspired me to take a closer look at this story.
The rest of the comments followed right along the same lines as these: We’re all too PC, the world is basically going to hell because white people are limited to the MILLIONS of other costumes available to them, and white people suffer the real racism as a result.
Okay, my fellow white folks, let’s try having this conversation again. Except this time, I’m giving you no pass when it comes to your lame excuses for continuing to ignore this conversation and consider yourselves the authority on what racism really is and what perpetuates it.
I could insert many paragraphs here explaining the inevitable harm that cultural stereotypes such as these cause, but I feel that a University of Louisville philosophy professor named Dr. David S. Owen already did a beautiful job of it in his op-ed piece, published by the Courier-Journal, responding to the controversy. As he so succinctly put it:
“The more serious harm that is caused by evoking these stereotypes is not so much in the offense that is caused as in the contributions these actions make toward maintaining and keeping place an already well-established system of racial oppression.”
Does this not make sense to you? Okay. The rest of this article, then, is specifically for you.
I don’t care if you “get it.” I don’t care if you understand why these types of costumes are offensive and harmful. What matters is that millions of non-white people have been telling you for years that they ARE, and those are the people who actually experience the harm caused by those stereotypes. Why are you ignoring those voices?
The people who actually experience that harm say that reducing their entire culture to a silly costume dismisses all non-white cultures as cultures to be taken less seriously and considered less valuable than white culture. White folks don’t get to be the authority on whether or not that’s true. We aren’t the authorities here, my fellow white folks. That dubious honor is only granted to people with lived experience of the harm these stereotypes cause.
Do you honestly believe, as a white person, that you are the absolute and last authority on what is and isn’t racist? Do you not see the irony in insisting that racism doesn’t exist while, at the same time, calling the entirety of non-white people who do say this is harmful and offensive “whiners” and “cry-babies” who are just overly sensitive and not as smart as you, who understands that this isn’t harmful?
Is it possible that your dismissal of millions of voices belonging to people who say this absolutely IS a harmful and offensive practice might be related to the fact that those voices belong to people of cultures that are not white and are therefore not to be taken as seriously because their views are considered less valuable than those of white people?
Are you getting it now?
