The exact same thing happened at a Lymington charity fancy dress event a year or two ago and on the back of a single letter of complaint from the town busybody (who didn’t attend the event) to the local free rag, the whole story went national … articles in the national media, tv debates and threats of police investigation
Now I fully understand that racism is a touchy subject and rightly so. It’s an ignorant outlook, out of kilter with modern values. However, I was at the event briefly and know a couple of the ‘culprits’ who are far from idiots, a bit closer to twats mebbe and certainly not racist.
Lymington could never be described as a hubbub of multi culturism but generally the townsfolk are an easygoing, liberal lot (and very ‘right on’) The theme for the event was sports teams and they came up with the bobsleigh idea for it’s quirkyness and being a bit different. Which is exactly how it was received on the day. They put a lot of effort in, everyone had a good laugh and it was voted the best costume. It never occured to anyone that it might be seen as having racist conotations until the papers broke the non-story and why should it ? It was an inventive and harmless comedy caper and all very innocent. It’s a sad day when that’s not allowed.
People need to chill a bit*, live and let live if it’s not hurting anyone.
I recently had the honour of organising a stag do and spent some time trawling various fancy dress websites. I was struck by the dearth of originality in the available costumes. I stumbled across the bobsled team quite a few times and it actually made my shortlist. Compared to most of the other options available it was reasonably funny.
I do have a similiar anecdote, where a friend dressed as Stevie Wonder at a festival. There was no malice in it whatsoever, there was a fancy dress theme of ‘Popstars, Rockstars & Divas’, and his favourite ‘pop’ star was(/is - this is going back a while, we were v young) Stevie Wonder.
The outfit was spectacular, he looked great. I can’t deny that both myself and my outlook have changed a lot since then, and I have certainly grown up a lot since too (for reference I was about 20). But even then, I felt very torn on it - with 100% knowledge the outfit was born out of nothing but love for Stevie.
But, I do think the history and connotations see hard to escape. Reactions that day were really varied, granted, mostly positive and taken in the spirit it was meant. But it was one conversation with a young black girl that really stuck with me.
She said herself she thought it was an a amazing effort, and had no doubt there was nothing bad meant about it. But, she still found herself extremely uncomfortable with it.
I do honestly get what you mean, and I guess in a way it is a shame that well-known meaning people can fall foul, but I think it’s hard to ignore the symbolism. Maybe I am just too much of a bleeding heart whatever, but I don’t think it’s my place to tell people what they can’t feel uncomfortable about, particularly as (Sorry) a straight white guy.
I’d love for us to get to the point where relations are at a point where such a thing would be OK, but I fear that’s a way off yet. Perhaps I was being a bit simplistic or hyperbolic above, but I do think you have to be a bit daft to do it at the minute and not expect any negative reaction.