7.8: Culture is Not a Costume: Cultural Appropriation and Halloween

First Name Basis Podcast

Jasmine Bradshaw

How To, Parenting, Education, Kids & Family

5 • 629 Ratings

🗓️ 11 October 2022

⏱️ 41 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Can you believe that Halloween is just around the corner?

I know some of you super-prepared parents out there are already getting costumes put together for your kiddos, and you may be wondering about cultural appropriation as you're looking through the shelves and online at all the costume options.

I get asked all the time about how to avoid cultural appropriation with Halloween costumes, so this week, I’m bringing you TWO resources to help you as you navigate finding costumes for you and your kiddos.

First is my podcast episode titled “Culture is Not a Costume: Cultural Appropriation and Halloween,” which is a one-stop shop for you to get all of your costume questions answered.

In the episode, you will learn about:

Indigenous appropriation on Halloween and how these costumes put Indigenous women in danger.
How you can avoid appropriation in Halloween costumes.
When it is appropriate to wear cultural artifacts.

Second is a free printable decision tree to help you determine whether a costume falls into the “cultural appropriation” category. It’s a great resource for helping you decide and for sparking conversations with your kiddos about what makes a costume appropriation or not. Head over to firstnamebasis.org/costumes to get your copy sent straight to your inbox!

Articles, Studies & Podcasts Referenced In The Episode

First Name Basis Podcast: Season 3, Episode 1: “Your Top 5 Cultural Appropriation Questions Answered”

“These costumes objectify Native American women. Retailers won’t stop selling them” by Nadra Nittle, Vox

“Our Society Can Never Really Eradicate Patriarchy or Sexual Violence When We Permit Violence Against Indigenous Women,” by Dani M., Wear Your Voice

“Yandy Responds to New Times Article, Says Costumes ‘Pay Homage’ to Native Americans” by Molly Longman, Phoenix New Times

“Yandy Finally Got Rid Of An Offensive Costume. So Why Are Some Protesters Still Angry?” by Molly Longman, Refinery29

“How to dress your Pākehā child up as Maui or Moana without appropriating Pasifika culture” by Emmaline Matagi, The Spinoff

“Please don’t tell your kids they can’t dress as Moana this Halloween” by Preeti Varathan, Quartz

“PSA: Don’t Let Your Kid Dress Up In These Costumes” by Rachel Garlinghouse, Scary Mommy

“Why Your White Kid Probably Shouldn’t Dress Up As Moana For Halloween” by Eden Hagos, Today’s Parent

Little Koto’s Closet Blog

Song Credit: “Sleeper” by Steve Adams” and “Dive Down” by VYEN

Transcript

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0:00.0	You're listening to the First Name Mases podcast, Season 7, Episode 8. Culture is not a costume.
0:07.7	Cultural appropriation and Halloween.
0:16.4	Teaching our children to be inclusive and anti-racist starts with us within the sacred walls of our home.
0:24.6	First-name basis is designed to empower you with the confidence you need to be a leader in your family and a changemaker in your community.
0:32.7	Together, we will wrestle with hard questions and use the answers to create the world we want,
0:38.7	a world that reflects our values of inclusion, compassion, and courage.
0:44.1	I'm your host, Jasmine Bradshaw, and I am so excited to be on this journey with you.
0:52.3	Hello, First NameBasis, fam. I am so glad you are here. It's almost Halloween, which is so
0:59.4	exciting. It's actually, well, I really didn't super love Halloween until I got married to Carter and
1:06.1	he is into it. So now I love it. I love dressing up with my family, but you know what I really hate on
1:12.8	Halloween? Cultural appropriation. Yes, yes. There is so much appropriation that happens on
1:20.2	Halloween. People are always dressing up like other cultures and it's just yucky. It really,
1:26.6	it's not cute. It's not a good look. And we've got to
1:30.1	stay away from it. So I've put together this entire episode of tips for you all about cultural
1:35.0	appropriation and how you can make sure that you are sticking to your family values and
1:40.5	avoiding cultural appropriation on Halloween. One of the cultures that gets appropriated, like, terribly around this time of year,
1:50.0	especially between Halloween and Thanksgiving, is the culture of indigenous peoples.
1:55.5	And so what I've done in this episode is I have really dug into the research behind the harm of dressing up like
2:03.2	Native American women and sexualizing the costumes and how that directly impacts the treatment
2:10.7	of Native American women and the reality of the fact that these costumes can put indigenous
2:16.8	women in danger. So there is a lot of
2:20.3	research about that in this episode. And with that, I want to give a trigger warning because we do
	...

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