The Halloween season brings with it pumpkin carving, trick or treating, and the promise of candy. However, Halloween continues to bring the same controversial costumes back year after year. More scandals and stories of individuals wearing culturally insensitive or even racist Halloween costumes flood through news feeds every year. Cultures shouldn’t be portrayed as a costume.
Painting one’s face black clearly provides an example people have recognized for years as a racially discriminatory costume which shouldn’t be displayed. However, this same sensitivity has not been shown to costumes of other cultures. In the past, many costumes have been pulled from stores, but some still remain. In 2018, a petition against Spirit Halloween, a popular Halloween chain, spread across the internet. The petition, created by change.org user Lori Brave Rock, called for the Halloween store to remove its inventory of Native American costumes. According to Newsweek.com, a 2019 Spirit Halloween in New Mexico faced criticism after a post of someone holding a racially insensitive costume titled “Mexican Man” went viral.
This year, Spirit Halloween continues to sell racially insensitive costumes, including costumes similar to those in the 2018 petition. Customers can find costumes themed around voodoo and the Day of the Dead. According to CNN, in 2011, students at Ohio University began a campaign to make students understand the context of the inappropriateness of these costumes. The poster campaign titled “We’re a Culture, Not a Costume” encouraged students to do research on their costume before wearing it. They argued that, in an age of Google, students couldn’t rely on the excuse of unawareness of their costumes' offensive nature or history.
In the past, AFHS has had racially insensitive scandals, revolving around students and their jokes with other students. Still, most AFHS students appear to believe that many Spirit Halloween costumes need to go. One student who wished to remain anonymous stated, “stores like Spirit have a responsibility to not sell costumes like this. It would be wrong if they sold a costume depicting blackface, but costumes painting other cultures incorrectly are still okay to sell? I really don’t understand why and I really think they should be held accountable.” Another student summarized what others seemed to feel “people are smart enough to know dressing up like a Native American is wrong. Shops shouldn’t sell these costumes period, but if you buy the costume, the social consequences are on you.”
This Halloween, dressing up may be handled differently due to COVID19, but that doesn’t change the existence of these costumes that still sit on the shelves of stores. Cultural insensitivity remains indefensible, even on Halloween.
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