Is this ok?

I saw this campaign being featured on angryasianman.com and thought it was so appropriate in light of Halloween. According to AAM: “These posters were created by Students Teaching About Racism in Society, a student organization at Ohio University. The campaign addresses all the ridiculous “ethnic” costumes that idiotic people like to wear on Halloween, something I’ve had to address here for many years every time October rolls around.”

I just cringe looking through the pictures on these posters of people dressed up as geishas and terrorists. I hate it when people mock another culture and say, “what’s the big deal? It’s just a joke!” As the people of God, we need to be especially sensitive when someone is treated as the “other” or “outsider.”
We need to be learners and not mockers of each other. And I say that, knowing that I slip up from time to time and say or do some really insensitive things. May the Lord help us to recognize and speak up when we see something that paints people in a way that is “not okay.”

I was having a conversation with someone about this campaign, and this person brought up a valid point, “Sometimes it’s bad (meaning, dressing up as someone else’s culture), but it’s not always bad.” He was saying that its the Asians that get up-in-arms when we see a majority culture person dressed up as an Asian, or mimicking an Asian language, but no majority culture person would get mad at an Asian dressed up, say, as a cowboy. Hmmm…. I don’t know about this one. What makes something ok? Thoughts?

You can find out more about this campaign  here or here