Episode 269 — White Dude In A Dashiki

[JulyDiaz 2797]

The very funny writer/internet person Mike Prochaska aka Tom Oatmeal joins Andrew Ti all this week to answer some racism questions. Today they discuss if it’s okay for a white dude to wear a dashiki. Be sure to call us at (323) 389-RACE to ask if anything is racist.

[Joshie 125]

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[action52 554]

I don't think it's automatically bad to participate in those sort of things, and I would even go with a YOR-style "on the balance it's good," statement on that one. But it can definitely veer into that well-meaning-but-patronizing liberal white racism. So while I think it's probably a positive thing overall for white people to participate in stuff like this, I think they need to be careful not to feel TOO highly of themselves.

[AndyPacheco-Fores 437]

White people in calavera makeup is usually ok, but that's pretty much just from Day of the Dead being so close to Halloween that it's like whatever, same shit. That parade looks iffy, actually--I see a lot of white people and no Latinos, which is problematic for an event that openly copies our shit, but maybe that's jus the photographer/editor only choosing white people for close-ups. On the fully terrible end of the spectrum, white people celebrating Cinco de Mayo is almost always fucking racist as shit.

[CarolynWu 0]

The very funny writer/internet person Mike Prochaska aka Tom Oatmeal joins Andrew Ti all this week to answer some racism questions. Today they discuss if it’s okay for a white dude to wear a dashiki. Be sure to call us at (323) 389-RACE to ask if anything is racist.

 

Meh. Multiculturalism is a sign of a healthy society. Wear the shit out of that dashiki and (I assume) your dreads. You only enter morally dubious territory when you profit (and really profit...a white boy slinging tacos in a food truck is not cultural appropriation) off of another culture.