October is coming to a end, which means falling temperatures, disappearing daylight, and preparing for everyone's favorite excuse to dress up: Halloween.
Of course, costume selection is crucial. Are you buying one at a store, or going the DIY route using what's already in your closet? Are you hitting a house party, or attending a warehouse jam? Are you coordinating with bae, or is this a last-ditch effort to snag a cuffing-season partner to prep for the next five months of winter and chill? (For inspiration, Beyoncé has already decided that she’s going as herself.)
Halloween is the most fun and freewheeling holiday of the year, but occasionally, some people take it too far by wearing costumes that perpetuate offensive and racist stereotypes.
In 2011, members of Ohio University’s Students Teaching About Racism in Society launched the “We’re a culture, not a costume” campaign to highlight the problem of reducing cultures to caricatures. Unlike Halloween-goers, people of color don't have the luxury of removing their ethnic identity (and the oppression that comes with it) after several hours.
You don’t have to be yourself on Halloween, but that doesn’t mean you get to be anybody.
To help you out, NTRSCTN has compiled the following list of racist costumes to avoid, so everyone can enjoy the holiday.
1. Ku Klux Klan member
2. 'Illegal alien'
3. Blackface
4. Trayvon Martin and George Zimmerman
Two men came under fire in 2013 for dressing up as George Zimmerman and Trayvon Martin—complete with blackface and a bloody hoodie—after a photo of their Halloween costumes circulated online.
Many criticized the men for trivializing Martin's death, including Grey's Anatomy actor Jesse Williams who sounded off via Twitter:
Zimmerman, 32, was charged with murder for fatally shooting Martin, an unarmed black 17-year-old, in 2012. However, a Florida jury acquitted him in 2013. The verdict sparked national outrage, and helped propel the #BlackLivesMatter protest movement.
5. 'Bolly Ho'
6. 'Arab'
7. 'Tribal Tease'/Native American
8. 'Sexy Chinese takeout' girl
It's fine to order takeout packaged in a Chinese food delivery box, but avoid wearing Halloween costumes that box Chinese women into a fetishistic role.
This particular costume plays into the cultural stereotype that women of East Asian descent are exotic, submissive, and hypersexual.
Watch award-winning poet Franny Choi describe a racist encounter in which a man hit on her by yelling, "I like pork fried rice":
Bonus: And then there's this terrible costume of a "Chinese gentleman"...