CASEY ANTHONY FOR HALLOWEEN
By Mohan Karulkar:
There was a time when I would have found a Casey Anthony Halloween mask pretty hilarious. What better way to show off your wit and cultural relevance than to lampoon America’s scariest, sluttiest, and luckiest child murderer, right? Irony is hot; dignity is overrated.
Except, it’s not.
Dignity is what makes us human. It means we have an innate right to respect and ethical treatment. Without dignity, from whatever source you gather it, our society stops working.
Just saying.
Anyway, according to Yahoo, Casey Anthony is the second-most popular “controversial” costume search on the site. The costume was also featured this week on The View. In a way, it’s not that surprising. Casey Anthony makes a “good” Halloween mask because she represents something to fear and hate. Something for the rest of us to rally around. A cultural Goldstein. A modern-day boogeyman. An easy target.
But she also represents a human being – acquitted of murder, living in hiding, and carrying the unimaginable emotions that accompany the violent loss of a child. That is the only thing that we can be sure of. And as hard as it might be to swallow, I believe it’s the only thing we can, in good conscience, act on.
And no, this is not a call for sympathy, but rather a call for dignity. In your mind, she may not deserve a second chance. But that’s irrelevant, because most second chances are undeserved anyway. And it’s the undeserved second chances – given and received – that most define who we are.
How will you define who you are?