Recently a Halloween costume of an “illegal alien,” with extra-terrestial head garment decked in orange jumpsuit and holding a green card, has upset many.

Story from AP (Courtesy of Yahoo! News):

A Halloween costume that depicts a space creature in orange prison garb emblazoned with the words “illegal alien” is reigniting debate over a long-used term based on the U.S. government’s designation of all foreigners as aliens.

A few miles away in the Little Havana neighborhood, workers at a popular costume store said it was not something they would carry because it was discriminatory. They do stock a human taco costume, replete with a Mariachi hat.

Oh.  Well there’s no harm in that.  Who doesn’t love a taco wearing a festive hat?

Cashier Carmen Torres, who recalled facing discrimination after arriving from Cuba as a young girl in the 1960s, said the costume was tasteless. “They haven’t done anything bad. You can punish those who are criminals, but not people who are trying to, trying to work,” Torres said.

Why the hell are they including stuttering in the lady’s quote?  Is “trying to, trying to work” the AP’s way of saying “Look, this lady is obviously Hispanic, so her English is still a bit behind.  Don’t beleive us?  Just look at the stutter.  You’re welcome.”  We get it, AP.  Just put “trying to work” and save us the extra 5 seconds of our lives.  The weird thing is, whenever someone doesn’t make sense usually, you quote it by putting {sic} or some other edition to make it more coherent.  Why not do it now?  This is incredibly minor but bugging the shit out me.  I think I’ve had too much coffee.

William Gheen, head of the North Carolina-based political action committee Americans for Legal Immigration, said efforts to get stores not to sell the costume amounted to an attack on freedom of speech. He urged Americans to buy the costumes in protest.

“I looked at the costume and thought it was kind of funny. The only thing that wasn’t funny was how many illegal immigrants are in this country,” said Gheen, who has given speeches suggesting Latin Americans are bringing an epidemic of tuberculosis to the U.S., despite government figures showing the illness is at an all-time low.

He’s actually right.  One of the first signs of tuberculosis is rolling your “r”s.  Then comes the ability to play soccer and inexplicably digest large quantities of corn.

Jorge-Mario Cabrera, a spokesman for the immigrant coalition, said the costume “perpetuates this idea we have about undocumented immigrants as alien foreigners, strangers, scary.”

Cabrera said he knew the costume could be taken as a play on words but the jumpsuit was too close to what many immigrants must wear in detention centers, “where they can spend months at a time, and where there is a lot of suffering.”

“That the creature was holding a green card was a stab at a (broader) community,” he said, because it suggests even with a legal document, immigrants are still scary criminals.

Jorge is right.  Just because you’re indeed free to say or make something doesn’t mean that its not racist, or business should be forced to sell it despite public backlash.  There are people who preach “heritage, not hate” when flying the Confederate flag.  They’re free to do it, but it’s still really racist.  That’s like me walking into a Polish synagogue wearing a swastika on my t-shirt.  I’m free to explain that it’s “heritage, not hate.”  The rest of the world is also free however, to explain quite strenuously that I’ve now become the world’s next news-worthy pariah.

To the costume designers, we understand the premise.  You think illegal aliens are being coddled for breaking the law and entering the country, and that’s a perfectly viable opinion if it’s how you want to stake your claim.  But making a costume that portrays legal immigrants as felons is the height of stupidity, assuming you actually want your ideology to gain in popularity.

Also, how is this funny?  It’s just an alien in a jumpsuit.  The alien isn’t even doing anything cheeky like spreading his fingers or probing people.  The only way it’s funny is if it resonates with your political views and you say, “YES!  This is going to offend people!  That’s awesome because illegal immigrants bother me!  Racial tension!”  There’s a fine line between politically punctual humor and being an overbearing douche.  The main difference is politically punctual humor makes people laugh, even when they don’t always agree with you.   This costume has no such appeal.