A story I read recently on Facebook that affected me was a post where a woman claimed that allowing our children to dress up as the beloved Disney character Moana for Halloween, was disrespecting the Polynesian culture. I couldn't believe what I was reading. Thankfully Auli’i Cravalho, the voice of Moana, couldn't disagree with this opinion more. She is from the Hawaiian Islands and finds no disrespect to her culture when she sees little girls dressing up as Moana for Halloween. I applaud her for that stance.
I think the bigger picture we need to look at is the mom's opinion of this costume. Is her elementary school age child trying to mock the Polynesians, so they dress up as Moana? I think the more likely scenario is that they hold Moana in such high regard, as an icon to look up to, that they want to emulate her on Halloween by dressing like her. Then I think its the mom with the hang up, and by restricting her daughter from wearing this costume, I believe she is teaching her hate and discrimination.
This shows me think that the bigger issue is the hate we teach our children. Our kids don't know hate until we introduce them to it with our own prejudices. In this instance they just wanted to be like the people they look up to, and we have to twist that into something mean and dirty.
I know this isn't applicable to every situation, but I think we need to really look at our opinions and see who is being effected by it. Sometimes kids need to be informed on why certain things they may say or do are offensive, but within reason. Don't take the purity of a child and twist it unless absolutely necessary.
Hate breeds hate. It's a vicious cycle that won't end unless we kill it with love and acceptance.
"Here are the values that I stand for: honesty, equality, kindness, compassion, treating people the way you want to be treated and helping those in need. To me, those are traditional values." -Ellen DeGeneres
Kaitlyn,
ReplyDeleteThis post is fantastic! I really agree with you with how there always has to be certain people that twist things around in order to make something dirty or mean. I believe that kids just want to dress up like characters like Moana, because they look up to that character. I think people need to look at how this gives children a way to learn about other cultures. It really is great that the individual who does the voice for the character commented and stood her ground. I can recall a time where a co-worker was complaining about how it is offensive for other co-workers to make jokes about his nationality. Although, I do not think that the people making the jokes were that serious, I can definitely see how people take offense to certain cultures. In this scenario, people are just hurting the kids in the end by them being innocent in wanting to dress like their favorite character.
I think it is silly for the parent to not allow their child to dress up as Moana for Halloween. For the parent to think that is inappropriate especially when the actress came out and thought its a great idea, is not a good look on that mom. Maybe the mom has some insecurities or like you mentioned, maybe she is teaching hate at home which is never OK. Either way, if it were up to me, I'd allow my daughter to dress as Moana because she truly does enjoy the character, not as a act of racism.
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