Giant Robot Store and GR2 News
Yes, blackface. Yes, Oriental dragon lady. They’re costumes and it’s Halloween. Are these images ok? It’s what we see, it’s what we want to be for a few hours. If it’s not ok, then what is? Does it need to be dictated by Hollywood? Is an Avatar alien ok but a Memoirs of a Geisha actress isn’t? Is dressing up like Dr Dre from NWA alright? What about Flavor Flav or even Precious? Is it alright to be Haing Ngor from The Killing Fields? Or Edward James Olmos from Stand and Deliver? There’s a line of some sort and it’s not defined by laws.
This reminds me of an incident while in high school. Our school was open for anyone to walk in at any hour. There are no security cameras of gates locking people out. Every year, someone put a white power type of pamphlet into every locker. It would happen at the dead of night and when opening up the locker, we’d all have a white power solicitation. Everyone wondered the typical, whodunit? Whenever it happened, it was on people’s minds and it happened annually.
Halloween 1986. I got to school early and walking in the hallway were two white robed executioners. They were Klansmen, the exact folks you’d think are the ones responsible for the pamphlets. Yes, it was obvious that dressed as part of the Halloween festivities that day. One of the two carried a spiked metal ball at the end of a broomstick. Their hoods covered their faces and their robes covered their street clothes.
