It’s practically October and you know what that means- Halloween and two more months until Christmas. With Halloween, comes the age old tradition of trick or treating and dress-up parties no matter how old you get. Some perceive October 31st as a day to be and look yourself and the person you want to be or maybe look like someone you look up to or simply dress up for the laughs, but what most don’t know is that these costumes have boundaries.
If you haven’t seen some already, a number of people take costumes to different levels and really commit to the process and even going so far as to do blackface or yellow face. Blackface is the act of putting on black paint or make-up by a white person or of any other decent; similarly, yellow face is the act of making a non-Asian look Asian by putting on make-up. Both acts are usually accompanied by offensive stereotypes and are commonly done by Hollywood actors and actresses.
Committing these racist acts are not only offensive but demeaning to the cultures from which they stem from.
Cultural appropriation is not simply referring to yourself as black or Asian even though you aren’t; it’s using these cultures that people value for comedy, for the hell of it or for something as petty as Halloween costumes. Unfortunately, not a lot of people are aware of instances wherein they could be appropriating a culture.
For example, back in tenth grade, a friend of mine was planning to do a group social experiment in which they would make themselves look black and see how people would react to it. I blatantly pointed out that it was blackface and it would be offensive to colored people, but my friend did not know or seem to care about it because once I told her, she told me that she was grouped with a friend who was black and the friend was okay with it. I tried reaching out to the group, but to no avail. Fortunately, they never went through with the idea, but just the thought of them maybe going through with the plan despite my advice has made me realize that not enough people know about this topic even though there have been many articles made about it in the past. What’s even more saddening is that some parents are the ones encouraging or having the idea of cultural appropriation and proposing this to their kids; all the while, children do not know what they are doing and how it is affecting people.
In short, Halloween is always fun for dressing up and eating candy, but it should not be an excuse to disregard or disrespect other cultures. There are multiple things one can dress up as for Halloween. Cultural appropriation is not cool nor sweet; not even on the sweetest night of the year thanks to candies and chocolates.
