Where Should You Draw the Line?

With every major celebration, event, or holiday comes a vast assortment of controversial articles and opinionated responses on the happenings of the day before.  The most recent holiday, Halloween, was no exception.  On the days following October 31^st, and influx of articles came into circulation discussing discriminatory costumes of celebrities, and even those of some random college students.  Many of these made headline news.

Brock Denton, a student of the University of Central Arkansas, decided to dress up as Bill Cosby at Sigma Tau Gamma’s Halloween party.  Ignorant to the discrimination and racial hate associated with blackface, Denton painted himself with black paint and posted a picture on Instagram of himself and a few of his brothers in their costumes.  The backlash was immediate and intense.

Denton claims to have received threats from people wanting to kill him and burn his house to the ground.  He says he is scared for his life.  Denton was recently expelled from his fraternity and the chapter of Sigma Tau Gamma at UCA was suspended.  If Denton is being honest, if he really was naïve to the true meaning of blackface, is this response from the public really deserved?

Hilary Duff, a household name for many girls born in the 90s, faced a similar backlash for her and her boyfriend’s Halloween costumes this year.  She dressed as a pilgrim, while her beau went as a Native American.  Many responses focused more on him than her, saying that his makeup and headpiece were offensive to Native American culture.  Now, I can understand and respect the issue of blackface more than I can with this one.  Because, who’s to say that his intent wasn’t to celebrate the Native American culture rather than make fun?

This is the issue in our society today.  People think so fast, make judgments so quickly, and jump to conclusions, all without stopping to take a minute to look at the situation and really think before they speak.  I agree that the blackface was an issue, but Denton received what I believe to be a proper punishment for his actions.  Is it really necessary to continue to bombard the child with death threats and insults for a mistake that could have be due to young ignorance?  Either way, he has now learned his lesson, and that is all that matters.

Everyone else can also learn a valuable lesson from these mistakes (as well as the responses to them).  As a society, we need to strive to be more understanding of one another, and less quick to judge.  Sometimes people make mistakes, but that doesn’t make them a bad person, and it doesn’t even make them racist.  Odds are that the people reaming Hilary Duff and Brock Denton have made a few mistakes of their own, so who are they to judge?

I am going to finish with some wise words from Alyson Noel, “There is an old and very wise Native American saying: Every time you point a finger in scorn—there are three remaining fingers pointing right back at you.” 

Works Cited

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/morning-mix/wp/2016/10/31/this-years-offensive-costume-white-college-student-dresses-as-bill-cosby-in-blackface/

http://www.ew.com/article/2016/10/30/hilary-duff-halloween-costume-controversy

http://www.goodreads.com/quotes/tag/pointing-fingers