Lighten Up, America

America has become more and more sensitive about LITERALLY everything over the past few years. Anything from the little shopping carts in Target, to slogans on t-shirts, but Halloween 2017 takes the cake for me. Allow me to expand…

First off, there has been an issue with little girls wanting to dress as Moana because some parents see it as being “Racist” where other feel like dressing up as Elsa from Frozen promoting “white beauty.” The only thing I see any of this promoting is oversensitive, whiny, just ridiculous overall. By any of this logic, we should just cancel out Haloween altogether. This is the ONE time every year where children, both big and small. Can literally be anything they want to be. These little girls just want to dress up as their favorite movie character. Moana is such a great movie, people (of all races, mind you) are singing the songs from the movie about as much as they were singing “Let it go” when Frozen came out.

Now, moving on to Kim K, Jay-Z and other artists who dressed up as iconic musicians for Halloween. Again, Folks look at your calendars….it’s HALLOWEEN!! The one time of the year where people dress up as whatever and whoever they want to be. Kim dressed up as Aaliyah, Madonna( with her sister, Kourtney as Michael Jackson), and Selena and social media had alot of negative things to say about it but had nothing negative to say about her dressing as Cher. I’m guessing because Cher is also Armenian. As soon as the pictures came out, people decided to jump on their keyboards and smartphone, hide behind screen names and claim racial insensitivity. Kim K…..who is married to a black man, who’s kids are half black? Who’s family clearly LOVES them some black men? We’ve seen her family travel the world and respect whatever country they travel to? I get it, people love to hate her, but calling her and anyone else dressed as their favorite artist, activist or superhero is just ridiculous. In other news, folks also claimed that Jay-Z (who is one of the greatest rappers of all time in my opinion) was throwing shade by dressing as Biggie Smalls, completely forgetting that Jay-Z has looked up and paid so much to Biggie throughout is an entire career. Jay-z has said over and over that Biggie is a legend, ad a pioneer in the hip-hop industry, so it only makes sense that he and Beyonce would dress as Lil Kim, another Hip Hop Icon, and Biggie for Halloween. I could understand if these people dressed up on Tuesday in April while having brunch or out shopping on Rodeo Dr, but this is, again….Halloween! Lighten up, America!

If we want to talk about different races dressing up as each other, and how it’s just “so wrong” and racially insensitive. Let’s consider the Pop phenomenon that is ComicCon. Star Wars, Star Trek, Marvel and Dc comics characters run amuck around local Coliseum and event centers across the US, but I guess that’s okay because those are Super Heros and aliens, not characters from a Disney movie. Where is it written that white people can ONLY be white characters and black people can ONLY be black characters? What about the races in between. According to the sensitive folks, you should stick to YOUR respective racial group and be happy with it.  God forbid we take away the ability for adults to dress up as Superman or Captain America but let’s put a restriction on our kids….the very individuals who don’t actually see the difference in the color of our skin until we, the adults point out that difference. Oops…did I just say that?! Yes, yes I did.

 

For the record, there ARE issues that I absolutely stand by.  I am not turning a blind eye to the real issues going on in America. First, don’t even get me started on the sexist, incompetence that is our current leader in the White House, having twitter wars with NBA and boycotting the NFL when he should be, I don’t know, running the country. ( and yes that includes the Virgin Islands and Puerto Rico.) Women being upset and outraged because the WH administration is dropping the birth control from health plans, is extremely understandable, especially since I am one of the millions of women on birth control for reasons other than just not wanting to have children right now.  Colin Kaepernick taking a knee during the National Anthem against police brutality is a movement that I support and respect as an African American who is sick of losing our black men and women to the hands of police. However, I don’t believe that one races live matter more than the other either. It breaks my heart when  ANY one of whatever race has died over senseless acts. But that is about people who have lost their lives, not because of some little girl; White, Black, Asian, Latino or Indian wanted to be her favorite Disney character. People…there IS a difference.

Listen, I understand that the US is all about the “First Amendment.” Freedom of speech for everyone! I also realize that because of the first amendment, I am able to have this little blog where I can voice my opinions and frustrations in my own way, so hey, I’m all for it myself. But seriously, some of these “issues” are reaching. I’m not sure when we got SO “politically correct” or for some, so”woke” that we start searching our cereal boxes and finetuning over commercial ads for signs of racial insensitivity. The racial climate and the need to be politically correct has become a huge part of America these days. Sometimes, I feel like I can’t scroll through social media without seeing a political post or the need to “wake up” over the smallest issues. I just long for the days when things weren’t so complicated and people weren’t so easily offended. When I could pick up a can of Pepsi or bathe with a bar of Dove soap without someone saying “ DIdn’t you hear about what happened?!” or “Didn’t you hear about that commercial that everyone is talking about?!” My hope is that we, as a nation, get past feeling so sensitive about the little things and focus on the big issues that really matter.

Off my soapbox…