HuffPo: Hilary Duff and Boyfriend 'Offend' With 'Racist' Thanksgiving Costumes

"Cultures are NOT a costume." To paraphrase Freud, sometimes a costume IS just a costume.

10.31.2016 

 

News

 

 Mark Tapson 

 

19

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Saturday must have been a slow news day for Cole Delbyck, entertainment reporter for the Huffington Post.

Casting about for some entertainment to report on, Delbyck took umbrage at actress Hilary Duff and her new boyfriend Jason Walsh, "who for some reason thought it was a good idea to dress up in the worst couples costume ever: a sexy pilgrim and a Native American 'chief.'” 

I find it hard to believe this is the worst couples costume ever -- I suspect that dubious honor goes to whatever Joy Behar and Whoopi Goldberg wore to The View's last Christmas party -- but in any case, what Delbyck is objecting to is the couple's (gasp!) sin of cultural appropriation. "Let’s pause to remind everybody," Delbyck wrote, "especially celebrities with influence, for the umpteenth time: cultures are not a costume."

Of course, Duff and Walsh weren't trying to represent entire cultures but were just dressing up for fun, and why it's Delbyck's or anybody else's business what Duff and Walsh wore to the Casamigos Halloween Party on Friday is a mystery.

"Dressing up as a Native American/pilgrim duo would be incredibly offensive in any year," the easily offended Delbyck continued, "considering the legacy of violence wrought upon native communities since the founding of this country." Blah blah blah.

Delbyck went on to complain that, what with the Dakota Access Pipeline protests and arrests last week, this is a particularly insensitive time to be stealing from and denigrating an entire culture, as Hilary Duff and her +1 apparently did.

Naturally, social media SJWs took the oppressive white couple to task "for not considering how their costumes might be received by ...hmmm... actual Native Americans," because miserable Progressives aren't happy unless they're forming an internet torches-and-pitchforks mob.

The two attended the Casamigos Halloween Party on Friday in their first public appearance as a couple. Duff divorced ex-husband Mike Comrie in February after six years of marriage. Rumors that the “Younger” star had moved on with personal trainer Walsh were confirmed earlier this month with an Instagram she shared of the two kissing. Dressing up as a Native American/pilgrim duo would be incredibly offensive in any year, considering the legacy of violence wrought upon native communities since the founding of this country. But the costume is particularly tone deaf given the current situation in North Dakota, where thousands of Native Americans and their supporters have been protesting the construction of the Dakota Access Pipeline. Pipeline opponents, who started demonstrating in January, say the proposed route threatens to contaminate the community’s water source and destroy sacred grounds. This week police raided a protest camp and arrested more than 100 people. Social media immediately took note of Duff and Walsh and rightfully read them for filth for not considering how their costumes might be received by ...hmmm... actual Native Americans.

Some HuffPo readers, to their credit (or possibly they were conservatives just trolling the site), ridiculed this sensitivity in comments beneath the article: