Author: Kate Gardner / Source: themarysue.com
Last week, I spent an inordinate amount of time yelling about Yandy’s sexy Handmaid’s Tale Halloween costumes and their decision to pull the outfit from their site.
At first, I considered that decision a victory, before being reminded of the fact that in all my raging against the machine that was those costumes, I had overlooked the fact that Yandy also sells incredibly racist costumes (ranging from “Indian Costumes” to “Voodoo Costumes”) as well, and there has not been a major push to have those taken down.
We featured a tweet on this topic in Saturday’s Things We Saw, but this is something that merits a deeper discussion, because as Michael Che joked at the Emmys, oppression is only bad when it happens to white women.Now that you’ve gotten the costume based on a fictional dystopia removed, can y’all muster up enough backlash to do something about the site’s entire “Indian Costumes” section? pic.twitter.com/qVpTWBFiRU
Halloween is a season where a lot of people, namely white people, feel the need to dress up in incredibly offensive costumes, many of which are sold at popular Halloween retailers. And this isn’t just a handful of people; every year, articles on how to not engage with cultural appropriation are written because this is a problem that keeps on popping up without fail.
Teen Vogue did a stellar video on culturally appropriative costumes last year, and ends it with this powerful summary of what the women in the video speak about: “Most importantly, listen to their message. These costumes aren’t funny and harmless; cultural appropriation isn’t senseless outrage. It’s a painful, dehumanizing attack on their culture, their history, their very existence. And it should have no place in our society — at Halloween and beyond.”
And Yandy is a purveyor of costumes for those who wish to really dig into their privileged side….
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