Speaker 1: Welcome to Stuff Mom Never told You from how Stuff
Speaker 1: Works dot com. Hello, and welcome to the podcast. I'm
Speaker 1: Kristen and I'm Caroline. And this kicks off one of
Speaker 1: two Halloween themed episodes that we're doing this year. And
Speaker 1: in this installment, we're going to talk about costumes. But
Speaker 1: we're not going to talk about sexy costumes. Now, we're
Speaker 1: going to talk about racist costumes. People. Yeah, we sometimes
Speaker 1: take a turn for the sexy and racist. If you can. Yeah,
Speaker 1: if you can get both of those in one, you
Speaker 1: become a terrible Halloween costumes stereotype. Yes, And this is
Speaker 1: a listener request that came from Facebook and it got
Speaker 1: a lot of likes, so we said, hey, let's talk
Speaker 1: about this costume issue because Caroline, I remember distinctly when
Speaker 1: I was in college, it was how loween and you know,
Speaker 1: everybody was out and I saw a guy dressed up
Speaker 1: as a member of the Taliban and he was in
Speaker 1: brown face and it was appalling. I mean, like, obviously
Speaker 1: he was trying to make a terrible nine eleven joke
Speaker 1: and being horribly racist about it. And that was my
Speaker 1: first direct experience with the racist Halloween costume. Now I'm
Speaker 1: I'm usually myself. I'm usually some sort of female cartoon character.
Speaker 1: I've I've been uh April O'Neil, and I've been Leela
Speaker 1: from Futrauma. But no, I can't say I've ever been
Speaker 1: something like a member of a particular culture. That's a
Speaker 1: really good thing, because it happens a lot, and it's
Speaker 1: become this issue where it's almost the annual conversation of
Speaker 1: Halloween goes either the route of are women's costumes so
Speaker 1: super duper sexy? Or what's up with all of these
Speaker 1: racially insensitive and flat out racist and cultural appropriation ng
Speaker 1: costumes gone on? Yeah? And I mean, I think it's
Speaker 1: good that we're talking about this, because it seems like
Speaker 1: the overwhelming response anytime you see anything online or hear
Speaker 1: about it on the radio or anywhere, people's overwhelming response
Speaker 1: tends to be, oh, get over yourselves, right, why are
Speaker 1: you so politically correct? Come on, like, my family didn't
Speaker 1: n slaves. I mean, it's like this, this whole, very expected,
Speaker 1: predictable argument that people make for being able to wear
Speaker 1: very culturally insensitive costumes, right, as though Halloween is some
Speaker 1: special day where not only did children get candy, but
Speaker 1: adults can get a free pass for wearing black face
Speaker 1: if they're white. UM So, in case you were wondering
Speaker 1: some examples of cost him that are not okay, the
Speaker 1: the blogs The Root and color Lines did a large roundup,
Speaker 1: and this first one I actually saw a couple of
Speaker 1: weeks ago when I was shopping for a costume for
Speaker 1: a stuff I've never told you video. It's the ghetto
Speaker 1: fab wig, the oversized afro, And it stopped me at
Speaker 1: my tracks when I was shopping because not only is
Speaker 1: it called the ghetto fab wig, but it was also
Speaker 1: a white woman modeling it. Yeah, I when I was
Speaker 1: when I saw that online, that picture that uh, that wig.
Speaker 1: I don't understand why they couldn't Why did they have
Speaker 1: to call it ghetto fabulous? You know? Like part of
Speaker 1: the issue was the naming, and a lot of people
Speaker 1: point the sound some of these blogs where it's like, okay,
Speaker 1: so you have, um a a wig ahead of hair
Speaker 1: that is like more traditionally African American, but you're naming
Speaker 1: it something like ghetto fabulous, tacking the fabulous on as
Speaker 1: supposed to make it okay or what exactly? Um Well,
Speaker 1: speaking of the hair issue, they're also gangster braids which
Speaker 1: look like Coolio on the cover of that album they
Speaker 1: do from a long time ago, they um. And then
Speaker 1: there's the one that I have not seen before, but
Speaker 1: it's called Bighood of Fat Tribal Tiki Warrior, which might
Speaker 1: sound hilarious but yet again, no, you're putting on the
Speaker 1: costume of a Samoan man, right. Yeah. And then you
Speaker 1: have one that is terrible and I've seen several inexplicably
Speaker 1: several iterations of this, which is the illegal alien commentary
Speaker 1: on immigration. Uh. And usually it's like an a literal
Speaker 1: like alien like from outer space face with either a
Speaker 1: mustache or one particularly horrendous one had a like prison uniform,
Speaker 1: an orange prison uniform. Yeah. Similarly to that, you have
Speaker 1: the hay amigo, where it's just the typical simbro poncho
Speaker 1: oversized mustach. I should get up. And then there are
Speaker 1: chop suey glasses with your glasses that you can wear
Speaker 1: that have eyes already in them that are slanted unlike yours.
Speaker 1: Oh wait, what are you doing? Right? And then of
Speaker 1: course the Japanese geisha, which is chuck full of meaning
Speaker 1: that we will talk about as we go on, but
Speaker 1: just the whole as we will talk about also the
Speaker 1: appropriation of other people's cultures, shrinking them down into something
Speaker 1: kind of cheap and tawdry for one night of entertainment
Speaker 1: and drinking, and then you get to go back to
Speaker 1: being your privileged self the next day. Exactly. Um So, Caroline,
Speaker 1: you mentioned how a lot of times when this conversation
Speaker 1: of racial and cultural appropriation in Halloween costumes comes up,
Speaker 1: the typical refrain from white people we have to just
Speaker 1: say flat out because that's who it's coming from a
Speaker 1: lot of times, is you are being way too politically incorrect.
Speaker 1: Can it just stop at some point? Can we just
Speaker 1: have one night? I mean, it's not like I own slaves, Okay, Yeah,
Speaker 1: And and those arguments are are kind of ridiculous when
Speaker 1: you I mean, let's just take a moment. You mentioned
Speaker 1: the whole argument of I didn't own slaves or my
Speaker 1: family didn't do that or whatever, Like, let's just think
Speaker 1: back a minute through our nation's history and the fact
Speaker 1: that a lot of people seem to just want to
Speaker 1: forget what happened in this country with slavery. And so
Speaker 1: when you fast fast forward to Halloween and people wanting
Speaker 1: to adopt costumes that mock African Americans or just Africans. Um,
Speaker 1: it's it's not okay, and your your joke that you're
Speaker 1: trying to make is not funny. Yeah. Leslie Pica, who
Speaker 1: is the associate professor of sociology at the University of
Speaker 1: Dayton in Ohio, told the Route that when it comes
Speaker 1: to just wanting to make those jokes, hey, we're just
Speaker 1: kidding around about some stereotypes, she says, it's especially insidious
Speaker 1: because it shuts down future conversations about the real, very
Speaker 1: unfunny issues, because oh, you're just making a joke out
Speaker 1: of it, right, And so it puts the blame on
Speaker 1: the person who's offended instead of the person who's doing
Speaker 1: the offended. And so you know, if I if you're
Speaker 1: if you're wearing a costume or or doing anything or
Speaker 1: saying something that I find offensive, suddenly I'm the bad
Speaker 1: guy because I'm offended because you're saying something about me
Speaker 1: or my culture or my background or whatever. Um, And
Speaker 1: that does, like, like uh, pick Us says, it does
Speaker 1: shut down the conversation because it's like, well, if you're
Speaker 1: just gonna make me feel doubly bad, then I don't
Speaker 1: even want to have this conversation with you. Yeah, and
Speaker 1: in the process of that, there's this factor of normalizing
Speaker 1: whiteness that scholars talk about in terms of how those
Speaker 1: racial and ethnic lampooning costumes only reinforced inaccurate ideas about
Speaker 1: totally distinct racial and cultural communities because you are boiling
Speaker 1: down all of the different variations or different ethnicities, different languages,
Speaker 1: different traditions into one hilariously stereotypical costume. Yeah, and you're
Speaker 1: just pretending that real people are fictional characters. I mean,
Speaker 1: it's one thing to dress up like a person, like
Speaker 1: a politician, like a character out of stories or mythology.
Speaker 1: It's another thing to dress up as Mexican guy or
Speaker 1: Geisha girl things like that, because then you are you're taking,
Speaker 1: you know, a whole entire culture with all of its
Speaker 1: facets and varied elements, and you're reducing it too, Like
Speaker 1: I said, something kind of cheap and tawdry. And speaking
Speaker 1: of cheap and tawdry, I hate that we even have
Speaker 1: to address the fact that black face still happens routinely
Speaker 1: in Halloween costumes. And I please, I really hope that
Speaker 1: there isn't a listener out there who thinks that oh
Speaker 1: maybe maybe. Is that okay? Is that just? I mean,
Speaker 1: come on, that's okay? Right now, we've all seen that
Speaker 1: Designing Women episode, right, which one is that? Just me?
Speaker 1: The Designing Women episode where they want to I don't
Speaker 1: know if it's a charity function, but the girls want
Speaker 1: to perform at a at a charity event maybe and
Speaker 1: they're going to perform as the supremes. Well, so they
Speaker 1: decided to just dress up in the fancy glittery gowns
Speaker 1: with feather bows or whatever. But Delta Berke's character gets
Speaker 1: it into her head that she is going to wear
Speaker 1: black face, and they won't let her on stage because
Speaker 1: because that's horrible, because that's ridiculous. Yeah. David Leonard, who
Speaker 1: is the associate professor and chair of the Department of
Speaker 1: Critical Culture and Gender and Race Studies at Washington State University,
Speaker 1: said that black face is quote a part of history
Speaker 1: of demonization, mothering, denying humanity, and imagining blackness through racist caricatures.
Speaker 1: Just just say no, people, yeah, and you're not by
Speaker 1: by dressing up in this way, you're really not honoring anyone,
Speaker 1: You're not celebrating a culture. You are failing at being ironic,
Speaker 1: Like none of this, none of this is a joke.
Speaker 1: But what if someone says, well, hey, listen, my my
Speaker 1: black friends don't mind, my Indian friends, don't mind my
Speaker 1: Asian friends. You know, there are people who say that too.
Speaker 1: Of like they they're not uncomfortable, but you are still
Speaker 1: dressing up as that character or that person or that
Speaker 1: cultural stereotype from a position of privilege, a different position,
Speaker 1: a position of other and so from that position you
Speaker 1: are still able to offend a whole lot of people.
Speaker 1: Just because your friend, your black friend, or your Asian
Speaker 1: friend or whoever, says that they're not bothered by it
Speaker 1: doesn't mean that a whole host of others are not. Well.
Speaker 1: It's kind of like, in the same way that wearing
Speaker 1: those costumes collapses an entire ethnicity into that one stereotype.
Speaker 1: Relying on maybe that one friend opinion sort of does
Speaker 1: the same thing of collapsing it all into one person.
Speaker 1: But it's also convenience. I think it's laziness. I think
Speaker 1: you know, when you say, oh, my one black friend
Speaker 1: is okay with me wearing black face, I think you
Speaker 1: know that that's sort of a lazy excuse and a
Speaker 1: lazy way to you know, be able to wear this
Speaker 1: dumb costume that you're committed to wearing for some reason. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I liked how Leonard said that. Listen, we aren't living
Speaker 1: in some sort of post racial by referendum society, because
Speaker 1: the fact of the matter is, while jokes are great,
Speaker 1: humor is fantastic, racism is obviously still alive and well
Speaker 1: when you look at things like the criminal justice gap,
Speaker 1: poverty and education gaps, stopping frisk policies, controversy over voter
Speaker 1: id laws, there's a lot of stuff that has been
Speaker 1: in the news this past year that's clear evidence that
Speaker 1: we are not living in some post racial utopia. It
Speaker 1: would be great if we were, but we aren't. Yeah,
Speaker 1: we're not. And people are still being judged by the
Speaker 1: way they look. I mean, a friend of mine was
Speaker 1: just telling me that his son walked up to the
Speaker 1: teacher to turn in an assignment early in high school
Speaker 1: and the teacher looks at him and it's like, oh, well,
Speaker 1: you don't look like the type to turn in an
Speaker 1: assignment early. Yes, And my friend and his son are
Speaker 1: African Americans, so we're we're definitely not in any sort
Speaker 1: of safe post racial zone. No. And if you if
Speaker 1: you want evidence too of that. Chescale is a prominent
Speaker 1: YouTube vlogger, and she did a video on costume fails
Speaker 1: about this kind of racial and cultural appropriation in costumes,
Speaker 1: and and if you just go on that video and
Speaker 1: read through the comments section, actually just don't do it.
Speaker 1: Never read the comment If you have blood pressure issues,
Speaker 1: don't read the comments. But the evidence is right there
Speaker 1: in the anger that people have of just watching this
Speaker 1: one video of someone saying intelligently, Hey, I would really
Speaker 1: appreciate it if you didn't wear black face this year.
Speaker 1: And in addition to for instance, chet Gale video, there
Speaker 1: are other people who are starting awareness campaigns about this
Speaker 1: kind of stuff too, including a group of students at
Speaker 1: Ohio University. Yeah. Their their group is called Students Teaching
Speaker 1: Against Racism in Society or STARS, and they launched a
Speaker 1: campaign a few years back called We're a Culture, Not
Speaker 1: a Costume. You've probably seen these posters around floating around
Speaker 1: the Internet. You've also probably seen the really jerky um
Speaker 1: meme versions making fun of them. But basically it's pictures
Speaker 1: of kids um from different ethnicities holding pictures or next
Speaker 1: to pictures of people in costume imitating their ethnicity. So
Speaker 1: there's an Asian girl next to someone dressed up as
Speaker 1: a geisha, you know, or there is an African American
Speaker 1: girl next year picture of someone in black faith. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and when I first saw these a couple of weeks ago,
Speaker 1: and they're really powerful because it does put what we're
Speaker 1: talking to in two visual perspective. But yet again, if
Speaker 1: you want evidence that there is still a problem, that
Speaker 1: this is a valid point for us to talk about,
Speaker 1: are the those meme responses that blew up in these
Speaker 1: kids faces where you have, uh, a mocking thing of
Speaker 1: a picture of a dog next to a costume of
Speaker 1: a person dressed up like a dog, right right exactly.
Speaker 1: And uh. Writer Whitney over at Auto Straddle talks about this.
Speaker 1: She is Asian and she was sort of taken aback,
Speaker 1: you could say, by the response that these kids got
Speaker 1: for their campaign. And she discusses what we mentioned earlier,
Speaker 1: which is that, you know, the problem with these racial
Speaker 1: stereotypes is that you from a position of privilege and
Speaker 1: other get to take the costume off and you're not
Speaker 1: worried so much about you know, stereotypes getting frisked for
Speaker 1: no reason things like that, But people who are minorities
Speaker 1: ethnic minorities cannot do that, and so she says that
Speaker 1: the resonance of everything from a geisha to a terrorist
Speaker 1: stereotype persists long after the end of October, basically saying,
Speaker 1: and the kids who started this, uh, this poster campaign,
Speaker 1: we're kind of saying the same thing, which is that
Speaker 1: every time images like this are perpetuated, you know, people
Speaker 1: in cartoony geisha costumes, people in black face, it perpetuates
Speaker 1: the day to day stereotypes to the act will humans
Speaker 1: have to live with? Right? And the fact of the
Speaker 1: matter two is I think you mentioned the Award laziness earlier.
Speaker 1: It was like saying these kinds of things is not
Speaker 1: an attempt to take the fun out of Halloween. Halloween
Speaker 1: is so much fun. Halloween is one of my favorite holidays,
Speaker 1: even though I usually leave by costumes until the last
Speaker 1: minute and I end up looking like a hot mess.
Speaker 1: But that's part of the fun of it. And part
Speaker 1: of the fun of it too, is trying to be
Speaker 1: creative because there are so many options out there, Like
Speaker 1: why you would feel so compelled to have to dress
Speaker 1: up as a Pocahontas like princess in a buckskin costume?
Speaker 1: You got it Halloween expressed, No, you don't know, you
Speaker 1: don't have to. Well, I mean exactly that, speaking of
Speaker 1: the pocahonest princess, I mean that things like that, Costumes
Speaker 1: like that are a huge, huge market that the sexy
Speaker 1: lady costumes. You know, everything from the sexy cheeseburger to
Speaker 1: the sexy nurse. But you also have the double terrible
Speaker 1: of playing off of racial and ethnic stereotypes in addition
Speaker 1: to sexualizing yourself and sexualizing that entire ethnic group. Um,
Speaker 1: the geisha again is a perfect example, uh, the Indian princess.
Speaker 1: And one of these blogs points out the fact that
Speaker 1: when you dress up like an Indian princess or a
Speaker 1: sexy Eskimo, you're ignoring the facts of sexual abuse that
Speaker 1: Native women in America face. One in three are raped,
Speaker 1: and seventy of the sexual violence against Native American women
Speaker 1: is by non Native men. So the more you perpetuate
Speaker 1: these not only sexy stereotypes, but the stereotypes of submissiveness
Speaker 1: and you know, constant sexual availability, you are not helping matters. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I mean, it's the whole factor of fetishizing the other,
Speaker 1: the exotic. Oh look at these these otherworldly creatures where
Speaker 1: they just turn in so quickly to objects that you
Speaker 1: can pursue at your leisure, which is which is not right. Um,
Speaker 1: But moving away from Halloween a little bit, we've used
Speaker 1: the term appropriation number of times already. What are we
Speaker 1: really talking about, though, nuts and bolts wise, when we're
Speaker 1: talking about appropriation, because this is not just something that
Speaker 1: happens in the Halloween costumes that we might choose to wear. Well, yeah,
Speaker 1: and we will talk about what appropriation means on a
Speaker 1: bigger scale, right, And we get back from a quick break,
Speaker 1: and now back to the podcast where we're talking about
Speaker 1: cultural appropriation beyond Halloween costumes. Right, So let's look look
Speaker 1: at the definition from Fordham University law professors Susan Skiffiti,
Speaker 1: who wrote the book Who Owns Culture, Appropriation and Authenticity
Speaker 1: in American Law. She says that while it is very
Speaker 1: complicated and complex, it's basically taking intellectual property, traditional knowledge,
Speaker 1: cultural expression, or artifacts from someone else's culture without permission.
Speaker 1: This can include the unauthorized use of another culture's dance, dress, music, language, folklore, cuisine,
Speaker 1: traditional medicine, religious symbols, et cetera. And she says it's
Speaker 1: most likely to be harmful when the source community is
Speaker 1: a minority group that has been oppressed or exploited in
Speaker 1: other ways, or when the object of appropriation is particularly sensitive,
Speaker 1: such as sacred objects. And so I know that she
Speaker 1: and therefore I just listed a lot of things, and
Speaker 1: you're like, well, what does I mean. I can't make
Speaker 1: spaghetti because that's Italian food, right right, Candy, calm down.
Speaker 1: A lot of this has to do a lot of
Speaker 1: this discussion about cultural appropriation and appropriating other people's beliefs,
Speaker 1: way of dressing religious items, all this stuff. It's about respect,
Speaker 1: and it's about the way that you obtain these things
Speaker 1: and about the way you use them exactly, and joking
Speaker 1: examples like eating spaghetti, eating sushi, I mean that those
Speaker 1: are forms of a globalization and also you can interpret
Speaker 1: it as well as for appreciating the products of other cultures. Right,
Speaker 1: Like one of the bloggers that we were reading posted
Speaker 1: about how she likes dream catchers Native American dream catchers,
Speaker 1: and she's fretting because she's like, well, here I am
Speaker 1: preaching against cultural appropriation, but am I appropriating them? And
Speaker 1: she talked to some sociologists, she talked to some actual
Speaker 1: members of the Native American community, and they hammered home
Speaker 1: that whole idea of how are you using it? Is
Speaker 1: it in a respectful way? Do you understand when you
Speaker 1: purchase a native made item from a Native American individual,
Speaker 1: do you understand the culture behind it? Do you respect it?
Speaker 1: Do you appreciate it? You know, it's it's not like
Speaker 1: it's different if you're Urban Outfitters and their Navajo underwear exactly.
Speaker 1: And this comes up a lot in fashion and in
Speaker 1: trends and in how a company like in Urban Outfitters
Speaker 1: might pluck from a culture, from their handiwork, from their
Speaker 1: their crafts that they have developed painstakingly, and then slap
Speaker 1: it on a T shirt and sell it to a
Speaker 1: bunch of white kids for way too much money. Right.
Speaker 1: But there's also a difference too between this appropriation and
Speaker 1: also mythology, and this is something that might be more
Speaker 1: tied to the Halloween aspect. Yeah, and I mean speaking
Speaker 1: of I mean white kids, I'm not you know, we're
Speaker 1: not trying to make anybody feel bad about being white necessarily.
Speaker 1: It's just that white quote unquote white Caucasians, Uh, we
Speaker 1: are the dominant culture here. White people, white Europeans came
Speaker 1: to this country we colonized this country and pretty much
Speaker 1: forced our culture onto everyone else, So is it too
Speaker 1: much to ask for a little cultural sensitivity? Yeah, I mean,
Speaker 1: and also in the process obviously of colonizing this country,
Speaker 1: there was a bit of genocide involved in that. And
Speaker 1: in the words of my culture is not a trend tumbler.
Speaker 1: You can't appropriate the dominant, especially if it was forced
Speaker 1: upon you. The term just doesn't apply because of the
Speaker 1: power imbalance. Yeah, so that's an answer too. Well, what
Speaker 1: about if you're appropriating my whiteness, like, well, you know,
Speaker 1: maybe you shouldn't wear polo shirts? And it's like all right, y'all.
Speaker 1: But there was one thing that came up in the
Speaker 1: discussion of Halloween costumes, of the white trash stereotype, which
Speaker 1: I say is also no, no, don't do that. You're also,
Speaker 1: I mean, you're saying hideous statements about other people as
Speaker 1: well who are of a different socioeconomic status or Southern
Speaker 1: just Southern in general. Oh, I can't tell you how often,
Speaker 1: as someone who grew up in the South lives in
Speaker 1: the South, still, I'm commonly frustrated by portrayals of Southern people.
Speaker 1: It is frustrating to see often Hollywood portrayals of being Southern,
Speaker 1: or Halloween portrayals of being Southern as being incredibly stereotypical,
Speaker 1: as if we're all just inbreeding idiots for lack of
Speaker 1: a better phrasing, not not eloquent podcast ors as some
Speaker 1: of us all. You know, But what are a few
Speaker 1: non Halloween examples of appropriation, just to just to round
Speaker 1: out this podcast, Caroline, Yeah, Well, I mean we did
Speaker 1: dig up a lot of great examples of terrible stuff
Speaker 1: when looking at Native American cultural appropriation. One huge when
Speaker 1: they got a lot of attention in a really weak, pointless,
Speaker 1: stupid apology was when Carly Class walked down the Victoria's
Speaker 1: Secret runway wearing a massive head dress. Yeah. Over the
Speaker 1: Native Appropriations blog, Adrian K writes that playing Indian has
Speaker 1: a long history in the United States, all the way
Speaker 1: back to those original tea party years in Boston, and
Speaker 1: in no way is it better than minstrel shows or
Speaker 1: dressing up in black face. You're collapsing distinct cultures and
Speaker 1: doing so, you're a serting your power over them. Is
Speaker 1: that power issue over and over and over again. And
Speaker 1: laziness too, because you're showing you don't care right, You're
Speaker 1: you're wearing this headdress which is traditional you know, regalia
Speaker 1: in various cultures that are foreign to you, and you're
Speaker 1: just showing that you don't really care about it. And
Speaker 1: then Victoria's Secret was an offender yet again with its
Speaker 1: Go East lingerie line that it came out with I
Speaker 1: think a couple of years back, and it portrayed one blonde,
Speaker 1: busty model in its gay shaw teddy and she had
Speaker 1: a little fan and everything as well, and it was
Speaker 1: quickly removed from the website because as soon as some
Speaker 1: Asian bloggers picked up on it and expressed some outrage,
Speaker 1: Victoria's Secret yet again tried to cover up their trail.
Speaker 1: And I'm not anti underwear. And someone else who was
Speaker 1: definitely not anti underwear was one of the commenters under
Speaker 1: the story about this Go East sexy Geisha underwear. This
Speaker 1: guy was like, you know, all these people have been saying, oh,
Speaker 1: you're too politically correct, you know, get off of it,
Speaker 1: you're too sensitive. And this guy comes on and he's like,
Speaker 1: you think he's about to defend the blogger for for
Speaker 1: thinking the costumes terrible, but instead his comment is like, well, I,
Speaker 1: for one, when I see a Geisha costume, fully expect
Speaker 1: to see an Asian woman. Come on, who wants to
Speaker 1: see a blonde woman in a Geisha costume? And you're like,
Speaker 1: my brain, it is breaking, And it broke Nina Jacento's
Speaker 1: brain over racial issious as well, she said that it's
Speaker 1: just another example of taking a culture and stripping it
Speaker 1: of its realness in order to fulfill fantasies of a
Speaker 1: safe and non threatening, mysterious East. And similarly to that
Speaker 1: point on native appreparations about playing Indian in its long
Speaker 1: history of another fashion blogger and Cornell University academic, Minha
Speaker 1: fam said that playing Oriental in quotes can be traced
Speaker 1: back to nineteen hundreds vaudeville stages. We're playing out fantasies
Speaker 1: of racial exoticism as a way of dealing with racial
Speaker 1: anxieties was a wildly popular cultural activity. And she also
Speaker 1: is one of these people who says, and also it's
Speaker 1: just a glaring example of laziness. Is this really what
Speaker 1: we're doing? You know, we have all these resources, all
Speaker 1: this creativity, all these cool things that we could be doing.
Speaker 1: Are we really just going to harp on that? Yeah?
Speaker 1: I I do think I do think it's a good
Speaker 1: point to bring up that it really is dealing with
Speaker 1: anxieties and making something that you don't know about completely
Speaker 1: one dimensional. Yeah, completely, not only taking away its otherness
Speaker 1: and installing this like exoticism onto it, but just not
Speaker 1: even trying. I mean, correct me listeners if I'm wrong,
Speaker 1: and you have done a lot of research about Geisha
Speaker 1: culture or or any other culture out there. But it
Speaker 1: does seem to be a lazy form of entertainment for
Speaker 1: privileged people who think that because they are in a
Speaker 1: position of power and that we are in some sort
Speaker 1: of post racial utopia, that they can just dress up
Speaker 1: in blackface or a Geisha costume and call it a day.
Speaker 1: And let me underscore the fact that we are not
Speaker 1: anti sexy costume in this podcast. This has nothing to
Speaker 1: do with the amount of skin that you want to
Speaker 1: show on Halloween. If you want to be a sexy Hamburg,
Speaker 1: you be that sexy Hamburger. But rather if you are
Speaker 1: thinking about pretending to be someone from another ethnicity, I
Speaker 1: think twice, please, well, do you know what you're gonna
Speaker 1: be for Halloween? I think I am going to be
Speaker 1: Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg because I have everything
Speaker 1: I need for it. I think I am going to
Speaker 1: be a silent movie star. Yeah. I really liked your
Speaker 1: idea for that. And you don't have to talk to
Speaker 1: anyone all night if you don't want to hold up
Speaker 1: cue cards that say give me another vod catanic exactly.
Speaker 1: And if you are looking for Halloween costumes, I am
Speaker 1: going to shamelessly plug the stuff mon Never Told You
Speaker 1: video five feminist Halloween costume ideas that does include my
Speaker 1: Ruth Bader Ginsburg, which you've seen the picture Caroline fantastic.
Speaker 1: It's pretty good, I gotta say so. You can head
Speaker 1: over to YouTube dot com slash stuff Mom Never Told
Speaker 1: Told You and check that out. And we want to
Speaker 1: hear what you're gonna be for Halloween as well, and
Speaker 1: what you think about our conversation about racial appropriation and Halloween.
Speaker 1: And if you're listening to this after Halloween and you
Speaker 1: saw some horrible violations of everything we've been talking about,
Speaker 1: let it all out to us vent mom Stuff at
Speaker 1: Discovery dot com, or you can also head over to
Speaker 1: Facebook or tweet us SEP mom Stuff podcast. And we
Speaker 1: got a couple of letters to share with you when
Speaker 1: we come right back from a quick break and now
Speaker 1: back to our letters. So I've got let her here
Speaker 1: from Heather about our endometriosis podcast, and she writes, when
Speaker 1: I was thirty three, I began to experience intense pain
Speaker 1: during my menstrual cycle. It was so bad that I
Speaker 1: would feel like I was being stabbed in either my
Speaker 1: lower back or my right lower front, almost like appendicitis.
Speaker 1: It would be so intense that I would get lightheaded
Speaker 1: and feel nauseous or vomit every single month. But I
Speaker 1: always went in for my annual PAP smears and PELP exams,
Speaker 1: and each one would come back with a clean bill
Speaker 1: of health. Even though I was in my early thirties
Speaker 1: not a teenager. My O b G, y N s
Speaker 1: were women, and I knew that there had to be
Speaker 1: more going on than just something I had to live with.
Speaker 1: I didn't push the subject because I figured that they
Speaker 1: were the doctors. They had the degrees, so they must
Speaker 1: know what they're talking about, and continued suffering for several years.
Speaker 1: Just before my thirty eight birthday, I experienced the worst
Speaker 1: pain I ever felt. The symptoms presented themselves like I
Speaker 1: had a pendicitis, and I ended up in the emergency room. Luckily,
Speaker 1: the doctor on call in the er happened to not
Speaker 1: only be an O B G I M, but actually
Speaker 1: taught other doctors how to reform laperscopic hits directomys, which
Speaker 1: I eventually had to have done. Unfortunately, there were so
Speaker 1: many large cysts in both ovaries that she was unable
Speaker 1: to save either. And I have a son, so I
Speaker 1: wasn't concerned about not being able to have another child.
Speaker 1: I later found out that my mom stuffered the same
Speaker 1: thing when she was younger, and my only sister ended
Speaker 1: up having the same symptoms later on that I first
Speaker 1: started having when she was around the same age. The
Speaker 1: doctors were trying to pawn it off on her as
Speaker 1: if it was just a painful period or something she
Speaker 1: was going to have to deal with. We need to
Speaker 1: tell women it's okay to raise their voice if they
Speaker 1: don't feel they're being heard. While doctors do have the degrees,
Speaker 1: we know what is normal and not normal when it
Speaker 1: comes to our bodies. Also, just because your doctor has ovaries,
Speaker 1: it doesn't mean they are better at their job than
Speaker 1: someone who doesn't. All my doctors were women, and they
Speaker 1: all told me the same thing until I ended up
Speaker 1: in the e er. Keep up the good work ladies.
Speaker 1: Well thanks Heather, and here's wishing you good health. And
Speaker 1: I have a letter here from Meg, also about our
Speaker 1: endometrius episode. She says, I'm twenty years old and have
Speaker 1: been suffering from chronic period pain and horrific PMS symptoms
Speaker 1: for the last ten years, ever since I got my
Speaker 1: first period at age ten, being on the pill for
Speaker 1: about nine years and trying to manage these symptoms. Like
Speaker 1: many young women, I was too embarrassed to talk to
Speaker 1: my doctor about just how bad it was until about
Speaker 1: five years ago. Despite having been seen by a gynecologist
Speaker 1: for many years prior, I was only diagnosed by accident
Speaker 1: while having a labor scopy. This was five years ago,
Speaker 1: and because of my age, the doctors were hesitant to
Speaker 1: operate on me for the endometriosis. We tried managing it
Speaker 1: with strongerness at the pill and dietary changes. However, my
Speaker 1: symptoms got so bad that the specialist told me it
Speaker 1: was time to operate. This time last year, I had
Speaker 1: my surgery, and when I came to after my operation,
Speaker 1: my doctor informed me that it was far worse than
Speaker 1: he thought it would be. You are a nineteen year
Speaker 1: old woman with endometriosis worse than I've seen in any
Speaker 1: of my forty year old patients, he said. I am
Speaker 1: now a year down the track and still managing these
Speaker 1: horrific symptoms with only the pill. In a few weeks,
Speaker 1: I'm going back to plead my case to be fitted
Speaker 1: with an i U D in the hopes that this
Speaker 1: will prevent any further damage and hopefully preserve what little
Speaker 1: chance I have left of being fertile. Well, thank you
Speaker 1: Meg for sharing your story, and I also wish you
Speaker 1: the best of luck with your health journey, and thanks
Speaker 1: to everybody who's written in mom Stuff. Discovery dot com
Speaker 1: is where you can send your letters. You can also
Speaker 1: follow us on Facebook and on Twitter at Mom's Stuff
Speaker 1: po Cast, and you can also follow us on Instagram
Speaker 1: at stuff Mom Never Told You. And you'll want to
Speaker 1: be sure to start following us because Caroline and I
Speaker 1: will be posting photos of our Halloween costumes there. And
Speaker 1: of course, don't forget to head on over to YouTube
Speaker 1: and check out our channel where at YouTube dot com
Speaker 1: slash stuff Mom Never Told You, and don't forget to
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