This "Illegal Alien" costume has been pulled from a number of stores because, in the words of one immigration rights activist, it is "distasteful, mean-spirited, and ignorant of social stigmas and current debate on immigration reform." I don't know what its designers and manufacturers intended, but I can see how it could be viewed that way.
On the other hand, this particular costume (unlike some others that have been removed from shelves) doesn't single out any particular ethnicity. As someone who is unabashedly pro-immigrant rights, I can also see it as a scathing satirical comment on the mindset of those who view immigrants as non-human. When I saw a photo of this costume, my first thought was of this summer's science-fiction hit "District 9" (and 1988's "Alien Nation"), which used extra-terrestrials as a metaphor for the treatment of illegal aliens and the ghettoization of black South Africans under apartheid. Roger Ebert wrote:
The film's South African setting brings up inescapable parallels with its now-defunct apartheid system of racial segregation. Many of them are obvious, such as the action to move a race out of the city and to a remote location. Others will be more pointed in South Africa. The title "District 9" evokes Cape Town's historic District 6, where Cape Coloureds (as they were called then) owned homes and businesses for many years before being bulldozed out and relocated. The hero's name, van der Merwe, is not only a common name for Afrikaners, the white South Africans of Dutch descent, but also the name of the protagonist of van der Merwe jokes, of which the point is that the hero is stupid. Nor would it escape a South African ear that the alien language incorporates clicking sounds, just as Bantu, the language of a large group of African apartheid targets.
Though as Ebert notes, the last third of the movie devolves into "standard shoot-out action," the movie scores some metaphorical points about the ways humans "dehumanize" the intelligent aliens -- referring to them derogatorily as "prawns," restricting them to "neighborhoods" that are really internment camps. In fact, the aliens are as "human" as any of the movie's homo sapiens.
So, you see, if I wore the above costume, I would be thinking of it as a spit in the face to those who regard illegal immigrants as 1) scary; and 2) less than human. I can imagine a huge immigrant rights demonstration, with thousands of people dressed in these costumes, saying "Is this how you see us?" or "Immigrants are people, too." America is a nation of immigrants (legal and otherwise). We're not going to deal with the "immigration problem" (if, indeed, it is a significant problem and not just a wedge issue, ripe for exploitation by appealing to racial and economic prejudices) as long as we pretend that people have no understandable human incentive to want to live and work here. The costume "illegal alien" (in a Guantanamo jumpsuit?) simply wants a green card, and plenty of American businesses and individuals are happy to employ her/him. (Which reminds me: Whatever happened to all those great jobs NAFTA supposedly sent to Mexico? Don't answer that.)
The meaning of this costume may lie not only in the eye of the beholder, but in the intentions of the wearer. And it might mean perceived differently in Texas than in Oregon -- or in Dallas than in Austin. Hmmmmm. What if the stencil font were replaced with Sarcastica?
HA! Sarcastica pops up again...seemingly because it is needed. It's like the twin robots in TF2. I LOVE when someone calls them racist to african americans, it means that he believes the ghetto culture can only come from black people. Self-pwnage!
Reminds me of movie (and/or TV sketch) Coneheads, which is the same joke with a different costume (even the Green Card).
Of course, the jump-suit twists things. Although it seems more like emphasis of the joke than a political statement.
I think it's well past time that we stop yelling "racism" at anything and everything some overwhiney activist complains about. We're not talking KKK robes here, we're talking about a costume whose potential humor and potential good-natured uses are just plain obvious--as with almost anything, the specific context in which it's used is key. I can easily see Latinos with a tongue-in-cheek sense of humor wearing this costume for its joke value, well-meaning scifi fans wearing it with no political context at all intended, and any number of other scenarios in which mean-spiritedness and offense never enter the picture. The angle of "dehumanizing" illegal immigrants is clearly far from the only one by which this costume can be viewed, and I doubt either anyone involved in creating it or more than 1% of people wearing it or seeing it worn view it that way.
Beyond that, I tire of the word "racism" being thrown around about issues which have nothing to do with race for the vast majority people on both sides. Do we really believe everyone opposed to illegal immigration is opposed due to racism? If not, then why is the costume, even taken in a political context, "racist"? If so, I pity those foolish enough to believe race is a central issue for very many illegal immigration opponents when there are so many legitimate political, economic, cultural, and social issues in play--and especially when illegal immigration supporters so often characterize their own efforts in racial terms of advancing "la raza."
i liked it because it was racially offensive and you had to go and ruin it, Jim.
...and just because something is racist, does that make it automatically not funny?
Gee, I thought it was just a pun.
I have a longstanding belief that, for the most part, people are offended by that which they chose to be offended by.
This costume is nothing more than a play on words. It's just a visualization of a pun, and if you're reading too much into it, that's your fault. It's only racist because of your own perception.
I am tending to agree with Omar here. I am also dressing as an illegal alien for Halloween. Then I will be hosting a Tea Party on November 14th. Illegal alien varmints MUST go.
"I pity those foolish enough to believe race is a central issue for very many illegal immigration opponents..." - De Gustibus
"I will be hosting a Tea Party on November 14th. Illegal alien varmints MUST go" - Cathy Fisher
Even if there are good, cogent arguments for opposing illegal immigration, those who oppose it need to have better counterarguments than "quit mischaracterizing us" when comments like Ms. Fisher's are out there. And, considering that Fisher might be putting us on, I'd add that as a Texan I hear plenty arguments like hers that are absolutely unironic.
Jim,
People who enter the United States illegally aren't part of any defined "race."
Even if we assumed for the sake of semantics that they were all from Mexico, which they're not, we'd still be talking about a national group, not a racial one.
So can we stop reaching for the incendiary term "racist" when it doesn't really apply?
I'd have titled your post "Is this Halloween costume prejudiced?"
(To which, FWIW, my answer: No. Kinda unfunny, but not offensive.)
JE: Jim, that's just the point: This particular costume, along with a couple of others that were explicitly "Mexican," was criticized as "racist" -- trading in anti-Latino stereotypes. See opinion piece here: http://bit.ly/buduR . It was that characterization that prompted me to ask the question.
I was surprised to see this costume characterized as racist. I took it as a political pun, personally. For the record, I have known three illegal immigrants, to use the PC term. One Australian and two Brits. They all came over on student Visas and dropped out without returning home.