Reply to Have you ever dressed up for Halloween or college party in a racially sensitive costume?

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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]Never. I don't know how you make it to adulthood, and can be such an ignorant idiot, honestly.

When I was a kid, my cousins made up a derogatory song about East Asians. Which was weird, because we're South Asian ourselves. But we were in Elementary school - I was probably 5-6 the last time we "sang" it. I was horrified about it by the time I was in upper elementary school, and I would be hugely embarrassed if I were "outed" about it - but at the same time, Kindergartners just don't know any better. If you're an adult and you don't know any better... I don't think you can excuse it on "well it was ok back then." [b]I figure they must have led a severely sheltered, privileged life to be so insensitive. [/b][/quote]

Yes to sheltered. Not everyone had the privilege of cross-racial friendships 40 years ago. There were THREE Asian kids and ONE kid of Native American descent in my fairly large high school class. I imagine that people from smaller communities didn’t have access to the Internet ( because it didn’t exist) or cross-racial friendships were dependent on the adults around them to explain how we treat others. Some of those adults failed them. Was a civil war dress-up in poor taste? Absolutely. Would I cancel someone over it? Not if it happened a long time ago. People using today’s metrics to judge behavior from decades ago really need to take perspective. Those kids didn’t have access to the knowledge they would now. I would judge those long ago college girls on how they behave in the present.

Actively teasing or intimidating someone? Completely different. But civil war reenactment was an accepted part of Southern culture in the 80s. We need to take that into account.

-someone with the benefit of a racially literate 80s mother
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