Takes Offence to Syrup Costume Reaction
Dear Editor:
Students and youths wear “offensive,” “racially insensitive” and outrageous costumes all the time for Halloween—including ones that include black makeup, such as when white kids go as Michael Jackson or when they don an afro wig to poke fun at or pay homage to an African American icon [“Commack Student Sent Home for Aunt Jemima Costume,” Oct. 31]. What of it?! And, yes, kids have worn such “offensive” costumes as Johnny Yuma (Confederate rebel) soldier uniforms and caps, Hitler outfits, and even—as did the 17-year-old who was suspended for wearing “black face” and an Aunt Jemima costume—Pocahontas costumes.
I’ve also seen kids don robes and beards to resemble Jesus or Osama Bin Laden. All such costumes are “offensive” to someone or some constituency for some reason. So what!
The high school officials who suspended the 17-year-old white male student for standing his ground—for his indignantly refusing to wipe off his makeup—acted foolishly; these school officials simply overreacted, taking offense for blacks. As a black and citizen I deplore such censorship and racial paternalism by school authorities. (Incidentally, paternalism is a form of racism.) Likewise, the NAACP—which is given nowadays to knee-jerk responses of crying “racism” to plain old fun and, now, even to Halloween antics that involve the donning of costumes that poke fun at or embrace racial stereotypes—lacked the common sense to know that they shouldn’t chase after kids in Halloween drag, as if those kids were modern-day robe- and hood-wearing Ku Klux Klan members.
Civil rights forces should deplore the suspension of the high school student, who was just having fun, and we should also lament the entry of the NAACP on the wrong side of the suspension, and also wonder where was and is the ACLU? The ACLU used to combat censorship and defend with great alacrity students’ freedoms from overzealous, inane school officials.
Michael Meyers
Executive Director, New York Civil Rights Coalition
Praise from Another Former Delivery Boy
Dear Editor:
Kudos to the Long Island Press. I’m happy to see the L.I. Press is still going strong. I was an L.I. Press delivery boy way back in the early 1950s when I lived in the town of Baldwin. Newsday, the other paper, was the bad boy paper at the time and still is in my opinion. I now live in New Hampshire and continue to thoroughly enjoy reading the Long Island Press. Keep it going!
Sincerely yours,
Peter Ashton
Enfield, New Hampshire
