Halloween is approaching quickly. Have you considered how the costumes available to us often marginalize a person’s identity or culture? Think about using this Halloween as an opportunity to examine your sensitivity to different cultures. Don’t just throw up your hands and think “C’mon, it’s just meant to be fun! It’s part of the tradition! Or, No one cared this much about costumes before!”
It’s important to align with and stand-up for minority populations and marginalized groups, and to do that we need to show respect for their cultures. To dress up and pretend to be a racial, ethnic, or religious group when you’re not reinforces a problematic power dynamic, wherein white people use, then discard, pieces of cultures just because we can.* I chose respecting other people over whatever society thinks is fun, like dressing up, and there are plenty of costumes that are fun and appropriate for Halloween. The message is that there is a choice in being part of the change in how we, as people of privilege, model that change. Sometimes this is achieved by examining where our traditions were borne from and reframing what is fun. Looking at who and what some Halloween costumes represent is a small, easy exercise to demonstrate sensitivity towards anyone who doesn’t get to choose how the world at large views them. It’s a way to challenge a stereotype that was placed unfairly upon underrepresented groups of people.
Please take a moment to consider the small and meaningful ways we can make a difference in changing the dialogue about other cultures this Halloween.
Here is a 4-minute video of six women explaining how it feels to see their culture worn and discarded for Halloween: My Culture is Not a Costume - Teen Vouge
*”The Conscious Kid”