burnitdownbaby:

For those who are unaware, Colton Haynes dressed up as Kanye West for Halloween a few years back. Cool cool, you wear costumes on Halloween, whatever. Go as a rapper if you like! BUT what Colton decided to do was to darken his skin with make-up (I am assuming) in order to make himself “look” like Kanye. No. This is called BLACKFACE, for those of you who are unaware, and it is racist.

Now maybe you’re saying OH HEY he wasn’t TRYING to be racist!!!! He didn’t say he hated black people/PoC!!!! You’re just an asshole!!! It was a costume!!!!

No. You are wrong. It does NOT matter what the intent of it was. What Colton did was blackface. By darkening his skin for a costume, he’s saying that Kanye West’s skin tone IS A COSTUME. If you darken your skin for Halloween or cosplay or something of that sort, you are saying that PoC’s skin tone is nothing more than a costume. 

I’m going to quote some of Damn, Lay Off The Bleach’s FAQ here, to reinforce what I’ve just said.

• Blackface/Brownface/Yellowface have all been used (and continue to be used) to dehumanize and parody Black people, brown people and Asian people respectively. Harmful stereotypes were employed and bolstered/upheld through these “comedic” shows, stereotypes that cause and aid in the perpetration of microaggressions. Racism escalates from such microaggressions before becoming larger, fatal incidents we often hear about on the news.
• Regardless of whether or not you are mocking others of different races/ethnicities, darkening your skin is still harmful to others and is a VERY weighted action. We repeat, even if you aren’t parodying another race/ethnicity, is it STILL HURTFUL to others. You cannot separate the racist history from said action JUST BECAUSE YOU want to cosplay and it’s extremely selfish and racist of you to disregard those very real emotions and realities for your own interests.
• The skin colors of the very real and very oppressed people (who have to live with the disadvantages that come from it) are NOT COSTUMES. 
• And NO, it isn’t *just like* painting yourself blue to be a Smurf or green to be the Hulk, not until we start seeing blue and green people walking around, complaining of the oppression and disadvantages they face because of who they are. You get a big fuck you if you even thought of such a thing.

Guess what? FUCK YOU, Colton Haynes, and FUCK YOU everyone who is defending him. If you’re going to quote the dictionary definition of racism at those of us who are trying to tell you he is WRONG, then FUCK YOU TOO. Because the dictionary was written by a bunch of white people thanks.

This is me collecting my people. SHUT THE HELL UP, HE DID SOMETHING VERY RACIST, AND IT IS NOT OKAY. DO NOT PRETEND THAT IT IS OKAY. STOP DEFENDING HIM.

(Source: machievel, via foxglovesandaconite)