Getting fired is awful, but a $69 million severance check can help make things a little bit less traumatic. You know, enough money to tide you over until you can find a new job.
That’s the rumored amount of Megyn Kelly‘s payout after NBC fired her from Megyn KellyToday. Kelly said she didn’t think “blackface” was any different than any other Halloween costume.
Halloween costumes have become controversial as of late, but blackface isn’t something that is newly offensive. It’s been considered inappropriate for a very long time.
To keep reading, click here: Megyn Kelly, $69 Million, and Your Office Halloween Party
I don’t get how it even comes to this. There are thousands of costume categories with zillions of options in each – super heros, professions, monsters of every kind, cartoon characters, animals. Why on earth is “dress up as a person of an ethnicity other than mine” the first idea that would even come to someone’s head when there are endless costume ideas that are both fun and completely neutral?? It’s not hard, people!
Pretty simple answer, really.
Let’s say my favorite superhero is Spiderman. Let’s say I’m black. Is that a problem? Spiderman is a pasty white boy, after all.
“But he wears a mask, so you never know his race!” Okay, let’s take the mask off. Let’s say my wife, a Mexican woman, wants to go as Mulan, her favorite Disney princess. Is there a problem?
What if I’m an Asian-American and I want to go as Horatio Hornblower? For that matter, what if I’m American and want to go as Edward Pellew? Would either of those be a problem?
In a rational society, the answer is obviously “No”–in each case the character is the item under consideration, not the race. It’s even less an issue because in each case except the last one, I’ve made the person in the costume a minority.
Now, let’s say I want to go as St. Moses the Black, my favorite Catholic saint. He’s a black man. I’m German/Irish. Is that a problem? Again, my interest is in the person, not the race–that man is what Aragorn WISHED he could be! But I somehow doubt that me going as a black monk is going to go over well, despite the fact that my intent is to show respect, not disrespect.
Basically, the issue is no longer “What is your intent?” It’s “What is the most easily-offended person going to think?” And that’s a harder thing to judge.
The issue is not whether or not one is allowed to dress up as a specific person of another race – it’s whether you chose to do so by exploiting stereotypical physical features. To use your example, most saints have specific symbols and clothing colors associated with them – wear those. Carry those. i could go as Francis of Assisi with a brown robe, a Tau cross, and a neighbor’s husky playing the Wolf of Gubbio for me. Or by attaching stuffed animals to to the bottom of the robe. It’s not brain surgery.
But if you’re getting bent out of shape because you can’t paint your face black, despite the ugly history of blackface, I’m going to suggest it’s not other people who are too “easily offended.”
Take over a successful morning TV programming slot and tank its ratings. Tank so hard, in fact, that you drag on the shows leading up to and following. Fail badly when given a golden opportunity at your own prime-time news show. Finally get fired after saying something racially insensitive and willfully ignorant (it’s 2018, if you don’t understand that blackface is at least a sensitive subject you don’t belong on a public stage) . Again. Walk away with a $60+ million severance check.
White privilege in action.