TY  - EJOU
AU  - de Vries, D. Bouke
TI  - Why Shouldn’t Race Be a Costume?―A (Qualified) Defense of Wearing Cross-Racial Make-Up During Halloween
T2  - Journal of Controversial Ideas

PY  - 2023
VL  - 3
IS  - 1
SN  - 2694-5991

AB  - Over the past decade, many politicians and celebrities in North America have found themselves embroiled in scandals that involved them having worn black make-up and in at least one incident white make-up. In most of these cases, the used make-up was part of a costume for Halloween, Purim, Carnival, or a themed party. This article challenges the view that wearing cross-racial make-up on such occasions as part of personal costumes—as opposed to costumes that are integral to specific cultural traditions, such as the New Orleans Zulu parade—is always wrong. To do so, it assesses the five most promising objections to this practice. Although some of these objections count against certain uses of cross-racial make-up, I show that in several high-profile cases where such make-up was worn, none of them had force, whether because the objections themselves were implausible and/or because they did not apply.
KW  - cross-racial make-up
KW  - blackface
KW  - whiteface
KW  - Halloween
KW  - offense
KW  - costumes
DO  - 10.35995/jci03010006