With Halloween upon us my thoughts unavoidably return to memories of trick-or-treating as a kid in my Pine Rock Park neighborhood of Shelton, Connecticut.
Even as a small child I was never a fan of the popular dime-store costumes with those horribly cheap plastic masks intended to be held in place by a flimsy black elastic cord. The boxed set always came with some sort of satin-like overalls that were not at all an actual costume but just a colorful overlay to hide your real clothes and on the chest area would be a picture of the character whose face you would be wearing. This to me never qualified as being a costume so I always made my own, or rather my mother and I always made my own costume.
My very favorite Halloween was the year I went as Aunt Jemima, and until my recently woke awareness I never thought anything of that choice other than, at 10 years of age, I had never seen anyone else go out as the iconic Black woman of pancake mix and syrup fame so I just knew I would be a hit, and indeed I was.
I recall that my totally oblivious mother very enthusiastically over saw the burning of cork, the soot from which was rubbed all over my face and hands to turn my skin brown. Mom created huge fake boobs for the occasion — behind my father’s back, of course, so as not to have to deal with his wrath — and an old house dress of hers was altered to perfectly fit me. The only purchased item was the fabric from which mom sewed me an apron and head-kerchief to precisely match those Aunt Jemima was seen to be wearing on labels, in commercials and on print ads of the day. In one hand I carried my pillowcase in which to collect my “treats” and in the other hand I carried the biggest pancake flipper I could find direct from our kitchen utensil drawer.
Can you imagine a white kid going out in blackface now-a-days?
When I think back to the time I did just that, it is with very mixed emotions. On one hand, I am appalled to realize the general and widespread insensitivity to the whole concept of blackface at that time as well as the powerfully negative implications which that practice heaved down upon people of color. On the other hand I miss the bliss and innocence that came with such a measure of ignorance to the plight of a much maligned segment of society, the facts about which, and reality of, are now so late in coming to full light in the wake of far too many murders of Black persons in this country that should have never occurred.
But innocence can only be claimed for so long before one eventually transgresses into the realm of willful ignorance, if, in the face of so much truth coming to undeniable light in the age of cellphone videos one could ever possibly still claim ignorance.
I will be the first to sheepishly and somewhat shamefully admit that I sometimes catch myself, if not startle myself, having a thought about the inconvenience of being completely woke regarding the plight of people of color in this country. Even among those of us who have never considered ourselves racist or insensitive to the ongoing inequities in the treatment of people of color in almost all endeavors of daily living in America, we can sometimes be tempted to resist taking the extra step to ally ourselves with those whose skin tone is different than our own. It’s sometimes socially uncomfortable, especially when among friends, work colleagues or drinking buddies, to raise an objection and register disdain when one among us attempts to minimize the magnitude of the problem of systemic racism in many, if not most, of our institutions but object we must.
Considering the myriad of legitimate and unfortunate circumstances around which the Black Lives Matter movement has come to be, certainly now is not the time to quibble over whether or not companies are overreacting in removing stereotypical images of an Uncle Ben or an Aunt Jemima or a Mrs. Butterworth from marketing campaigns. So long as grossly transparent voter suppression efforts, specifically in areas with a high number of non-white residents, remains a thing and so long as white policemen continue to treat Black persons differently than white persons, so regularly resulting in death, I don’t think anyone should waste a moment voicing an opinion regarding the re-theming of Splash Mountain when your voice is so desperately needed to register a call for change.
These are challenging times, especially for those of us who publicly operate in the realms of comedy and parody. It’s much easier to just throw up one’s arms and declare, “Well, you can’t say anything anymore without someone being offended” than it is to thoughtfully examine the things you accepted as humor in the past that might — even if unintentionally — have not only been hurtful to others but perhaps gave license to others to willfully offend.
We can all do better, especially those of us of a certain age in the LGBTQ+ community who have ourselves suffered certain indignations borne out of willful ignorance, religious intolerance or just downright hatred. Certainly, we MUST do better in standing up for, standing with and unashamedly speaking up on behalf of our Black and Brown neighbors even when it may prove inconvenient or uncomfortable.
I’m Wanzie and that’s all I wrote!
