{"id":6817,"date":"2014-10-29T09:09:49","date_gmt":"2014-10-29T15:09:49","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=6817"},"modified":"2014-10-29T09:21:37","modified_gmt":"2014-10-29T15:21:37","slug":"its-not-culturally-insenstive-when-we-do-it-in-a-hip-and-ironic-way","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=6817","title":{"rendered":"It’s Not Culturally Insenstive When We Do It in a Hip and Ironic Way"},"content":{"rendered":"

One Antonia Blumberg, writing at The Huffington Post<\/em>, which often veers off into the weeds of political correctness, tackles that burning question of late October: Is it “culturally insensitive” to wear a Hallowe’en witch costume?<\/a><\/p>\n

But the\u00a0 HuffPo’s\u00a0 <\/em>cultural sensitivity is barely skin deep \u2014 they are also featuring an article on “Witch Is the New Black: How to Dress Like Your Favorite Sorceress.<\/a>”<\/p>\n

At least Blumberg interviews Selena Fox of Circle Sanctuary, who sees no problem:<\/p>\n

“As someone who has been politically active for many years, I see that there’s some power in taking images and repurposing them,” said Fox. “Some in our community have chosen to have some fun with witch costumes.”<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Pagan doctoral candidate Sam Webster adds,<\/p>\n

“It highly depends on who’s doing it,” Webster told HuffPost. “If it’s a pagan or a witch, they’re usually doing it with a bunch of self-referential irony.”<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Which makes sense; and what also makes sense is to adopt an attitude of “who cares?” Don’t be like the stupid school administrators mentioned in the article who banned Hallowe’en celebrations in the school “partly out of respect for practitioners of Wicca who might find the symbols offensive.” Yeah, right. They care so much about us. That language is just bureaucratic butt-covering: “Let’s avoid controversy by banning something else.”<\/p>\n

The more Hallowe’en celebrations and the more pointy hats, the better, as far as I can see. Only what do the guys wear? Sorry, I can’t do Sabrina or Stevie Nicks.<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

One Antonia Blumberg, writing at The Huffington Post, which often veers off into the weeds of political correctness, tackles that burning question of late October: Is it “culturally insensitive” to wear a Hallowe’en witch costume? But the\u00a0 HuffPo’s\u00a0 cultural sensitivity is barely skin deep \u2014 they are also featuring an article on “Witch Is the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[66,6,29],"class_list":["post-6817","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-halloween","tag-wicca","tag-witchcraft"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p6xQTg-1LX","jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":6280,"url":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=6280","url_meta":{"origin":6817,"position":0},"title":"Quick Review: The Wizard and the Witch","author":"Chas S. Clifton","date":"February 24, 2014","format":false,"excerpt":"One of my earliest entries on this blog, clear back in 2003, was a complaint about the lack of biographical and autobiographical writing in American Wicca \u2014 and I would extend that to all types of new Paganism generally. That entry did mention Margot Adler's Heretic's Heart (1997), but I\u2026","rel":"","context":"In \"American religion\"","block_context":{"text":"American religion","link":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?tag=american-religion"},"img":{"alt_text":"wizard and witch","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/blog.chasclifton.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/02\/wizard-and-witch.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":928,"url":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=928","url_meta":{"origin":6817,"position":1},"title":"The Occult Experience","author":"Chas S. Clifton","date":"September 7, 2007","format":false,"excerpt":"In my office with the fast Ethernet connection, I downloaded the 1987 documentary The Occult Experience. It is available on various bittorent servers, such as here. (There was tie-in with Nevil Drury's 1987 book of the same name, I believe.)Lots of the film is actually older. Some footage goes back\u2026","rel":"","context":"In \"movies\"","block_context":{"text":"movies","link":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?tag=movies"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":8399,"url":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=8399","url_meta":{"origin":6817,"position":2},"title":"New Pomegranate Issue Published","author":"Chas S. Clifton","date":"December 31, 2016","format":false,"excerpt":"The newest issue of The Pomegranate: The International Journal of Pagan Studies (18:2), has been published online, with printed copies coming soon. Book reviews are free; there is a charge for articles. Complete table of contents with download links here.\u00a0 Amazon links below. Articles \"The Image of Paganism in the\u2026","rel":"","context":"In \"scholarship\"","block_context":{"text":"scholarship","link":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?tag=scholarship"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"\/\/ir-na.amazon-adsystem.com\/e\/ir?t=soutrocknatub-20&l=am2&o=1&a=B00OX8L16C","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":2900,"url":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=2900","url_meta":{"origin":6817,"position":3},"title":"Quick Review: Spellbound: Inside West Africa’s Witch Camps","author":"Chas S. Clifton","date":"July 16, 2011","format":false,"excerpt":"Karen Palmer, author of Spellbound: Inside West Africa's Witch Camps, is a veteran journalist, not a historian of witchcraft, so for me to read the book from the latter perspective is to do her a slight disservice. (As an inside, the subtitle might\u00a0 better read \"Inside Ghana's Witch Camps,\" but\u2026","rel":"","context":"In \"Africa\"","block_context":{"text":"Africa","link":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?tag=africa"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":6604,"url":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=6604","url_meta":{"origin":6817,"position":4},"title":"“Choose How Cute or Evil She Should Be”","author":"Chas S. Clifton","date":"July 20, 2014","format":false,"excerpt":"The sexy witch. The evil witch. The cute witch. What accessories should she wear? What animal is her familiar? And where did she come from? When I ran across this website (another update of the old paper doll), I thought of two things right away. One was a book co-authored\u2026","rel":"","context":"In \"witchcraft\"","block_context":{"text":"witchcraft","link":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?tag=witchcraft"},"img":{"alt_text":"historical witch creator","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/blog.chasclifton.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/07\/historical-witch-creator.png?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":10019,"url":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=10019","url_meta":{"origin":6817,"position":5},"title":"Season of the Witch(crap), Part 2","author":"Chas S. Clifton","date":"December 4, 2018","format":false,"excerpt":"\"Season of the Witch(crap), Part 1\" here. Continuing . . . \u2022 One more \"high\" priestess joke, and you're out of here. From the Colorado Springs Independent, the weekly that gets all the cannabis advertising because the chain-owned daily paper won't touch it: \"Meet Colorado's High Priestess of Cannabis.\" Yes,\u2026","rel":"","context":"In \"American religion\"","block_context":{"text":"American religion","link":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?tag=american-religion"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/media1.fdncms.com\/csindy\/imager\/u\/blog\/14467973\/cannaculture.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/media1.fdncms.com\/csindy\/imager\/u\/blog\/14467973\/cannaculture.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/media1.fdncms.com\/csindy\/imager\/u\/blog\/14467973\/cannaculture.jpg?resize=525%2C300&ssl=1 1.5x"},"classes":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6817","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=6817"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6817\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":6821,"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6817\/revisions\/6821"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=6817"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=6817"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=6817"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}