Kevin Hart Dismisses Controversy Over Son’s “Cowboy’s and Indians” Party

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When people complain about how changing norms make certain things okay or not okay, they’re often more or less complaining that the world has rendered the opinions that they once held as progressive to be sort of old and out of touch. A great example is the way we talk about Native Americans. While many parts of the world have dug in their heels and want nothing to do with the concept of respecting Native people, most of us have finally understood that the way we talk about Native Americans — from casting them as the bad guys in many of our movies, to just completely erasing their struggle from history when we celebrate certain holidays such as Columbus Day or Thanksgiving. So one can understand the public’s general distaste for when Kevin Hart threw his one year old son a “cowboys and Indians” themed birthday party.

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The controversy began when Kevin Hart’s wife, Eniko, posted a photo from the party showing guests dressed up in the costumes of cowboys and Indians. Controversy spread, but Kevin Hart himself has brushed it off with a… questionable defense, saying that it was okay when he was a kid, and the Redskins played football that same day. Now, aside from racists, no one really is okay with the fact that the Redskins are named the Redskins. And a lot of awful stuff was okay when Kevin Hart was a kid in the 1960’s. It’s a questionable defense, but Kevin Hart defended himself on his Sirius XM show, “Straight From the Hart”, as excerpted on TMZ: “It shows how stupid our world is becoming with opinions.” , which is a hell of an opinion to have about dressing up as the race of a people different from you.

Kevin Hart then brought up the hypothetical existence of little kids playing slave and slave-owner, something that seems bad if it was a reality, and the existence of which wouldn’t make this okay.

Now, we here at What’s Trending generally feel that blatantly dressing up as other races is kind of very bad. But hey, Kevin Hart. Keep defending this. You do you. This is a very stupid hill to die on, but you do you. I for one don’t think Native Americans are movie tropes and are actually a people? But you do you.

What do you think of this story? Is the controversy over this party overblown or is it in fact kind of racist? Let us know in the comments or on Twitter at @WhatsTrending.

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