Halloween, Culture & Bad Costume Ideas

Photo Credit: &y

From CNN.com:

"Thinking about donning a kimono to dress like a geisha for Halloween, or a Mexican mariachi suit?

Students from Ohio University have a message for you: "We're a culture, not a costume."

With ethnic and racial stereotypes becoming increasingly popular Halloween costume themes, members of the school's Students Teaching About Racism in Society are launching a campaign to make revelers think twice before reducing a culture to a caricature, the group's president said.

Posters from the campaign are expected to go up on the Athens, Ohio, campus Wednesday. Meanwhile, the images are making the rounds online, raising debate over whether it's ever OK for people to paint their faces black, impersonate a racial stereotype for fun, and where to drawn the line.

It's a seasonal point of controversy, but even after widely publicized controversies such as the "Ghetto Fab" wig at Kohl's and Target's illegal alien jumpsuit, costumes of stereotypes abound. On Google's shopping section, several pages of Mexican costume ideas are available, from gauchos and "Mexican donkey costumes" to sexy serapes and tequila shooter girls.

The ad campaign from Ohio University show students holding photos of different racial and ethnic stereotypes in costume: an Hispanic guy with a picture of the Mexican donkey costume, an Asian girl with an image of a Geisha, a Muslim student with a photo of a white guy wearing a traditional ghutra and iqal over his head, bombs strapped to his chest.

"During Halloween, we see offensive costumes. We don't like it, we don't appreciate it. We wanted to do a campaign about it saying, 'Hey, think about this. It's offensive,'" said senior Sarah Williams, president of STARS.

"The best way to get rid of stereotypes and racism is to have a discussion and raise awareness, which is what we want to do with this campaign," said Williams, who is black and plans on dressing as singer Janelle Monae for Halloween.

The most obvious offense occurs when someone who's not black decides to go blackface, because of the historical context, she said. But the message applies to all races and stereotypes -- and not just during Halloween.

The dean of students fully supported the campaign, calling it a "clean, succinct" way of delivering an important message.

"We've always tried to get a handle on what it means to be thoughtful and appropriate when it comes to talking to students about choosing costumes and making the best decisions for celebrating Halloween," Ryan Lombardi said.

"I think it's a clean way of raising awareness of how the costumes you choose might be offensive. In many cases, students aren't doing it maliciously, but they might not realize the consequences of their actions on others."

If you're thinking about dressing up as someone from another culture for Halloween, please reconsider. It may not be as funny as you think.

To read the complete CNN.com article please click here.

Leadership, Humility & Sins of Omission

Photo Credit: The_Warfield

From Patrick Lencioni:

"See, in most organizations, the biggest problems arise not because leaders are actively promoting the wrong behavior, but rather because they’re passively doing so by allowing people to get away with this behavior without impunity.

The most common reason that leaders commit sins of omission is simply because they just don’t feel comfortable confronting people about what they are or are not doing. Instead, they look the other way and hope that the problem goes away. And so, when they see that the problem has spread throughout their organization, they really have no one to blame but themselves. This is a moment of great humility. And a moment of truth.

Great leaders, like great parents, will grit their teeth and accept the painful reality that they are almost always the reason that something is awry in their organizations. They’ll accept the pain of being humbled and set themselves on a course of correction. In the end, their egos may be temporarily bruised but the organizations they lead will improve. Poor leaders, on the other hand, will try to protect their egos by continuing to blame others. Ultimately, their organizations will suffer, and their egos will get much bigger bruises, the kind that last a long time."

To read the complete article please click here.

(h/t to Greg Hersey for the link)

Michael Vick: Can He Ever Be Forgiven?

Photo Credit: warpafx

ESPN: The Magazine took an interesting approach with its NFL preview issue this year by centering the magazine around the resurgence of Michael Vick, his impact on the NFL and our society. Several articles explored Vick's upbringing, his influence on the game of football and his involvement in dog fighting and his subsequent time in prison.

One article, "The Dog in the Room: A lot of people will never forgive Michael Vick. A lot of people wonder why, too." by David Fleming, particularly interested me as it examined our culture's view of pets, especially dogs, and why Vick is so vilified in some pockets of our society.

Fleming writes:

"In the fight for sole possession of the moral high ground, the fierceness of Vick's supporters and foes often leads to a complete dismissal of the opposition's valid points. For some African-Americans, a suspicion that somewhere along the way this increased devotion to animals directly correlates to a decreased respect for humans has hardened into excusing Vick of any wrongdoing altogether. There are cries of racism when perhaps speciesism may be more accurate. At the same time, animal rights activists can seem to be indulging their misanthropic side. Pets are easy to love -- humans, not so much.

This blurring of boundaries between the welfare of humans and animals is at the heart of Vick's pariah status. In this country, almost 40 million dog owners consider their pets to be a part of the family. A 2001 survey of pet owners revealed that 83 percent referred to themselves as their animals' "mommy" or "daddy." That's one reason that when Vick pleaded guilty to managing a dogfighting ring, people responded as if he had serially murdered children. "Vick should never ever, be publicly supported again -- ever," said Simon Cowell of American Idol fame. People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals sent a public letter to the NFL titled "Is Michael Vick a Clinically Diagnosable Psychopath?" White Sox pitcher Mark Buehrle admitted in an interview with mlb.com to openly rooting for Vick to get hurt. "Some things are considered sacred in our culture, and they tend to cluster around the defense of the innocent such as animals and children," says veterinarian and USA Today columnist Patty Khuly. "There are a lot of pitfalls in directly comparing animals and babies, but the need to defend them comes from the same place."

In December of last year, just as Vick was making a run for MVP (he lost to Tom Brady), pundit Tucker Carlson appeared on Fox News and declared that the NFL's Comeback Player of the Year "should have been executed" for his crimes. The outrageous statement was denounced so quickly (even by Carlson) that it denied us the chance to examine the hypocrisy and moral paradoxes behind Carlson's -- and our own -- viewpoints on animal cruelty. For starters: Did Carlson also believe his stepmom should be put to death? She is, after all, the heir of Carl A. Swanson, founder of Swanson frozen foods -- a company that in its heyday slaughtered hundreds of millions of chickens. "People should look at what they're eating and what they're spending their dollars on and what kind of animal abuse they themselves are supporting," says Singer. "And if they haven't taken a good look at that, I don't think they have much right to criticize Vick."

The same night Carlson went after Vick, the TV was awash with Old Spice deodorant commercials starring Ravens linebacker Ray Lewis. "Women want me, men want to be me," said Lewis. Surreal, considering that less than 10 years ago the pitchman stood in an Atlanta courtroom and pleaded guilty to obstruction of justice in a double stabbing murder following Super Bowl XXXIV. The reason Vick's crimes continue to stay in the spotlight while Lewis' history or Ben Roethlisberger's alleged acts of sexual misconduct don't is that there are at least 40 times as many animal lovers as there are NFL season-ticket holders. And their pets have become the antidotes to something Mother Teresa described as the most terrible poverty of human existence: loneliness. "I don't know if dogs are sacred. But so many people have these personal relationships with them," says Singer. "They are very loyal animals, very uncritical animals. Because of that people can't imagine doing to them the kinds of things that Vick did."

Vick's case has raised all sorts of issues about which animals should be protected and which shouldn't. For example, would we feel the same about him if he had done the things he did to chickens or cows? Some people have questioned whether a person like Vick can be truly rehabilitated. Can he?

Since I'm a firm believer that those that have done horrible things to people can be forgiven then I have to believe that Michael Vick can be forgiven. He has admitted what he did was wrong. He has done his time. He's seeking to help educate others of the horrors of animal cruelty. I'm willing to give him the benefit of the doubt and trust that his remorse is sincere. What Vick did was inexcusable but I wonder why some of us are more troubled by what he did than the crimes that are committed towards our fellow humans that don't affect us as deeply. It's something to think about it...

To read the complete ESPN article please click here.