Despite recent appearances to the contrary, Blair Crowley and Terry Nunn say they are not racists. They just may not possess the best judgment when it comes to Halloween costumes.
Granted, it certainly looked like racism at a Royal Canadian Legion Halloween costume party last Saturday in Campbellford, Ont. where the pair dressed, respectively, as a Klu Klux Klan member and his slave, complete with blackface and a rope tied around his neck.
The appalling costume choice – made all the more disgraceful by the fact that the duo WON THE CONTEST - came to light after party attendee Mark Andrade (a black man) left the event in disgust and later complained to local police about the incident (while Crowley and Nunn did nothing illegal, an investigation has been launched into the Legion branch’s role in the matter).
Crowley and Nunn deserve their fair share of criticism for a clearly insensitive, offensive and poorly conceived idea, but their costumes were less a product of racism as much as they reflected a growing October 31 tendency to push the envelope. For some, Halloween has turned into an arms race to garner the greatest shock value, all the while de-emphasizing what constitutes good taste and reasonable public behaviour.
Obviously, as evidenced by Crowley and Nunn’s first place finish, the costumes were viewed by at least some as being amusing, similar to other common boundary-pushing costumes like a Catholic priest. Crowley’s response to the situation highlighted a widely held attitude that costumes – regardless of their nature – are a light-hearted aspect of a light-hearted holiday and should be received as such.
"It was just a costume for Halloween," Crowley told CTV News (story can be found here). "People dress up like axe murderers [too], so I didn’t think it was that big of a deal."
But while there is a place for humour among Halloween costumes, they should not come at the expense of making others uncomfortable. The term “political correctness” has taken on a negative stigma as being associated with an overly rigid, limiting mindset that caters to supposedly humourless, easy-to-offend people. While it can be taken to the extreme and over-used, political correctness came into being due to diverse populations in which no one should be made to feel alienated or ostracized.
That continues to be the case today, and Mark Andrade should still never be made to feel uncomfortable, regardless of what day of the year it is.
Digital Journal
