Recently I got into an embittered battle with a friend concerning someone’s Halloween costume.
A mutual white acquaintance dressed as a “wigger,” which I found to be completely ridiculous and mad ignorant. The intent of the costume, it’s said, was to “poke fun” at the way white people dress like black people. Other than the term “wigger” being only about a half step removed from the n-word, the costume was about as culturally ignorant as dressing in blackface, and it reminded me of the Straight Thuggin’ party at the University of Chicago that garnered so much media attention. I know this girl did not have malicious intent, but isn’t that always the excuse? My position is that, Halloween or not, cultural sensitivity does not suddenly fly out of the window. As someone who is highly concerned with issues of race and gender, I feel it is my duty and my right to speak out against someone making such egregious errors. Whereas someone can claim ignorance once, it’s desirable to prevent such actions from happening in the future. Education and awareness are key, and I’m totally sensitive to the fact that sometimes white people with no black friends who grow up in white places aren’t exactly as aware as they might be if they were in a different position.
The reason this battle bothered me so much is not because of the matter at hand. It was because I began to see that despite this person being one of my closest friends, there is a chasm that will never be bridged. At many points over the days that this argument boiled on (and on and on), I was brought to tears because of his sheer unwillingness and inability to understand this simple fact: As a white male, who grew up in Iowa, with absolutely no black friends besides myself, he just does not have the same reaction to these things that I do. It’s not a bad thing, there’s just no basis to see these things in the same context. To him, dressing in blackface and imitating minstrelsy is merely an act of political defiance, or an act of free speech. Ignorant, but understandable, given the circumstances. But to me, it evokes feelings that are very deeply connected to my past, my present and my future. My family lived through race riots in Chicago after King’s assassination. My great-grandparents were share croppers. I’ve been called a “nigger.” So for someone without those experiences to tell me that I don’t have the right to be upset about something as seemingly inoffensive as a Halloween costume takes away my agency as a human being. There’s nothing worse than being told that what you think does not matter, except maybe if it’s a so-called friend who keeps saying it.
The most perplexing part of this is that this man purported to be advocating freedom of speech by chastising me for exercising mine. I never told anyone that they couldn’t dress as anything for Halloween– I merely wanted to raise awareness to the issue and make sure that if the person wasn’t aware of what they were doing, that they would be in the future. But to be repeatedly bludgeoned by the First Amendment is missing the point. Doesn’t that mean that I shouldn’t be persecuted for feeling the way I did?
Look, this isn’t about Halloween costumes. It’s about the fact that this man, with whom I thought I shared a very special bond, pretty much ruined our friendship by going on a pointless self-righteous tirade with no logical purpose, even when I repeatedly pleaded with him to stop. I felt violated every time I was accused of hating free speech, or every time I was told I was wrong for having my beliefs. Weirdly enough, the same pig-headed tactics of flaunting the Constitution and denial of personal freedom are used by the American Government to get their way. Hmmm. Interesting.
But what I got most out of this is something I’ve been told I’d eventually figure out: There’s no way in hell that I can ever seriously date a white man again. They’ll never share the same beliefs as I do, which isn’t normally bad, but I don’t think I could handle the emotional fallout of such an argument again. I guess I can’t explain it, really, but it’s worse than disputes about normal things that happen in a relationship because there’s just absolutely no way that the person will see your point of view because they’ve just walked in different shoes for their entire lives. And plus, that whole white man-black woman power dynamic is just something that always kind of simmers in the back of my mind and when things like this happen, I remember the historical implications of such things. This whole ordeal was taxing, but no matter how much I talked to certain friends about it, despite their wonderful intentions, they just could not grasp what I was saying. Except for Tiffany, my best friend, and perhaps one of the only people I know who looks at racial politics on the same level as me. She saw exactly the same things I did, and provided me with the encouragement to stick up for myself.
So, it may not seem like a huge deal. After all, it was just a Halloween costume. And I agree with that: at the end of the day, it’s obviously not as bad as, say hanging a noose on someone’s doorknob. But we need to realize, as a culture, that the things we do are not in a vacuum. You can use the argument that something is happening “just on Halloween” or “just at X College,” but each such incident contributes to a larger issue that needs to be addressed in our country. It contributes to a collective mindset that is dangerous, given our nation’s despicable and oppressive history.
Given the United States’ murky history of codifying eugenics into 
