It’s almost time for Halloween, and the best part of Halloween in college is that you get to celebrate it with a different costume every night of the weekend. Ironically, this is also the worst part. Now you have to come up with more than one costume. I always struggled enough deciding what to be for one night. It’s a good thing there are so many options ranging from traditional costumes to gag outfits or pop culture references. Just remember that it’s all too easy to cross the line in costume design and become that offensive party-goer no one wants to be around. This happens when someone’s costume appropriates culture. To understand this, you should know that cultural appropriation has to do with power. When someone with power takes a piece of another culture who have struggled with power in the past (for example Native Americans and their headdresses) to parade around as a costume: this is cultural appropriation – and in my mind it is not okay.
When there are so many acceptable options such as supernatural creatures or famous people, there should be no issue avoiding the problematic costumes. Simple costumes to create are movie characters and important historical figures for example. When those people are of other cultures with distinct character dress, then it is okay to dress like them; but when you take a piece of another culture simply for show, it becomes offensive. Clothing items that hold significance in a minority culture are not to be used as props. They are not parts of a comedy act to be laughed at, and they are most certainly not sexy. If you go to buy a costume that is a “Sexy Mexican,” put it down.
An easy rule of thumb for what to avoid is anything that employs a cultural or racial stereotype. The people who suffer from the backlash of these stereotypes do not choose to dress up as themselves every day. They do not have a choice to put on an act one day and live their lives differently every other day. In the same breath, those of a non-minority should absolutely not get to dress up as a minority for a day. Being part of a culture is not something you can change. Culture cannot be put on and taken off, which is what happens when people use it as an offensive costume. Until you experience the hardships on a daily basis, you do not get to take it off at the end of the night and go back to living with your usual privilege.
If these statements apply to your costume, don’t wear it:
1. I have to come up with an excuse for wearing it when people ask who I am.
2. I embody a stereotype.
3. I am accompanying it with a fake accent.
4. It contains a piece of another culture that holds significance (i.e. spiritual importance) and I have no connection to it or extensive knowledge of it.
5. It is called a “Sexy blank” and that blank is a race, culture, or ethnic identity.