The Angry Family, as misanthropic as we are, has often been chased through such public venues by groups of people we find abhorrent, and this was the case even on this dreary day. One threesome consisted of a mother and her son, and a second woman who had apparently taken on the role of educator. Because this woman insisted on wearing a huge handsfree earloop with microphone, we thought (briefly) she was a docent.
This illusion was shattered at the gorilla habitat, in which she spoke loudly and incorrectly about the taxonomy of the family Hominidea. Apparently, humans are descended from Homo Sapiens, now extinct, and we are Homo Sapiens Sapiens. Bzzt! Thank you for playing!
Ms. Never-Actually-Went-To-Anthropology-Lecture-But-Showed-For-The-Exams was irritating enough on her own that we would have left the park to escape her. But it was the rest of her group that held our attention, particularly the young man. In the spirit of the season, he was costumed, not as the Incredible Hulk or Frankenstein's Monster, but as a pimp. His costume was not unlike this one: a fake zebra coat with matching walking stick, purple velvet hat with a feather, and lots of plastic bling. His mother was also wearing a big hat with a feather, but it wasn't quite as obvious what effect she intended to achieve.
So I have some questions:
How does someone explain to an 8-year-old boy what a pimp is, and then encourage him to wear a pimp costume for Hallowe'en? How is dressing an 8-year-old White kid up as a Black stereotype anything but incredibly offensive? How is this different from slapping on some blackface and tucking a watermelon under one arm? Am I being too sensitive? I googled "pimp costume," and got 25,600 hits. Most of the links I examined had their pimp costumes modeled by White men and kids.
11 comments:
You are so totally not being oversensitive. People are idiots, and racism is alive and well.
My kid's going as a bat.
a bat? a flying mouse! how cool for PK.
Actually, we are Sapiens Sapiens. Sorry. Wikipedia is wrong about lots of things. We are the evolutionary heir of Sapiens (Gracile). Here is a fairly accurate description...http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/homs/species.html
The Little Anachronism is a flamingo. We don't know why, just that the idee fixe has been in place since May....
I'm with you on the pimp costume thing. Though the media portrayals (crime dramas and, yes, music videos) of the character have been so mixed (often positive) that I'm not entirely sure that "racism" is the best rubric for discussing the disturbing aspects of the costume.
Anonymous, I'm confused about the Homo thing. I know we are sapiens sapiens, a subspecies of sapiens. Which means Homo sapiens isn't extinct, although many branches of that tree are (e.g., Homo sapiens neanderthalensis). The faq seems to confirm this.
The annoying woman also called the gorilla a hominid, and I took umbrage at that as well (gorillas are not bipedal), although the faq at talkorigins.org indicates some ambiguity about what to call the family of great apes. She said that gorillas and chimps were our closest genetic cousins, completely ignoring the bonobos in the next habitat (she probably thought they were chimps).
In sum, I don't know any more. One problem seems to be the controversy behind the taxonomic classification of the great apes, and some people still clinging to the old version (apparently, what I learned). Could you clear this up for me? Is a gorilla considered a hominid these days? Does Homo sapiens refer to an ancestor (archaic), or are we a subspecies of Homo sapiens?
Wow, bats and flamingos are really cool costumes. Last year Angry Toddler was a spider. She is currently battling a spider web phobia, and so she gets a little upset when she sees pictures of herself from last year. The poodle costume is fascinating to her because, you see, it has a tail. And Angry Toddler MUST have a tail.
I'm glad I have some support on the pimp costume thing. I realized as I was blogging that post that I have left all my Black friends and acquaintances behind. I have no Black friends here in the Square Red State, and it just felt too strange to email my friends out of the blue and say, "Hey, do you think this is offensive?"
I was pretty shocked to see a movie called Lil' Pimp in a video place this summer. I wasn't entirely sure if it was directed at kids, but, regardless, is it really necessary to glorify criminals who abuse and exploit women? How about rapist costumes for Halloween?
How did you resist saying, "Oh, look! A pimp and a hooker!"
You must not have been that angry...
I think its just a little ignorant of you to catagorize pimps as "black" incredibly actually, there have been pimps all shapes sizes and colors through out history... get a grip and relax people can raise thier kids however they like, reguardless of what you consider a good idea or not. If you can't get past silly little things like this then you're going to go crazy.
I rant, I rave and technically I just felt like giving you a hard time.
Ann Onomous
I realize this post is 2 years late but I thought I'd share, in case someone out here happens upon this.
I'm 20, a sophomore at Princeton, and home for fall break this week. My younger brother (who's 18) is dressing up as a pimp today. He thinks it's hysterical and is puzzled at why I'm not so amused. While I agree with the blogger who started this discussion, that pimp costumes are offensive, we don't share the same reason for thinking this way. I'm more intent on agreeing with the poster above me. S/he pointed out that pimps are criminals who exploit women. May I add, they also exploit children, and not just girls, but boys and teenagers of all genders. Men (of all sexual orientations) have also had to take recourse to a life of prostitution. Unfortunately there are way too many layers of stereotypes to wade through. Ultimately though, I don't find the racial stigma to be the main offensive aspect of pimp costumes (even if I am technically Hispanic, although you’d mistake me and my immediate family for White in a second). The issue I have with such costumes is that pimps (who are of all races) exploit other PEOPLE as sexual objects, for illicit profits!
Anyway, everyone thinks I'm overreacting but am I really? Going back to what the blogger said originally: How do you explain to a child at a costume store what a pimp is, and encourage him/her to dress that way?!
Rant over...
Happy Halloween everyone!
"Modern humans" are defined as the Homo sapiens species, of which the only extant subspecies - our own - is known as Homo sapiens sapiens. Homo sapiens idaltu (roughly translated as "elder wise human"), the other known subspecies, is now extinct.
-the current wikipedia page
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