Historically Speaking by Dr. James Finck: Cultural Appropriation

In the current environment of race sensitivity, I think it is necessary to ask certain questions. I think the best way to move forward as a nation is to have a dialoged. With Halloween approaching I am reminded of a situation last year where children were criticized for dressing up as characters not of their race. In a time when we are pushing for equality and inclusiveness, at what point do we cross a line into racism? In the past Disney has been accused of racism by making most of their characters white and in recent years has done their best to create a diverse cast of heroes and princesses. In our efforts to diversify, what happens if a little girl loves a character like Moana and wants to dress as her for Halloween? In some ways this should be celebrated as the type of color blindness we want to teach our children, but in other ways this is being seen as racism and cultural appropriation. Historically speaking this is actually not new. We have seen examples of this over the past decade, but also from a tumultuous decade a long time ago.