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The Liberal platform promised to enact all 94 recommendations of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission, to implement the Kelowna Accord, and to launch a national public inquiry into missing and murdered Indigenous women, among many other overdue measures. And I have a great way to kick off what will hopefully be a new era of better relations between Canada and Indigenous people: don’t dress up as them for Halloween!
You can buy costumes in Canada called “Pocahottie,” “Huron Honey,” and “Eskimo Cutie.” These hyper-sexual outfits are particularly horrible in the context of the missing and murdered Indigenous women I just mentioned. But more broadly, Indigenous people are human beings who have been colonized and systematically oppressed. They’re not fanciful characters like a vampire or a smurf. Just stop and smurf about it. Use your smurf.
But why is it okay for people to dress up as a leprechaun? Isn’t that hurtful to Canadians with an Irish background? Well as far as I’m aware, the Canadian government didn’t make a long-term effort to extinguish Irish culture and stick Irish children in residential schools where they were banned from speaking their own languages, and sexually and physically abused up until the 1990s. I’m also not aware of leprechauns being real.
So go ahead and be the sexiest mermaid or the hunkiest merman you can be, or choose one of the other infinite costume options you have. But please don’t dress up as an Indigenous person. It’s really smurfing inconsiderate.
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