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Halloween is no excuse for racism

Imaginative Halloween enthusiasts ambled into the streets last week in the usual colorful display of outfits—some of them humorous, some of them horrifying, but not all of them tasteful.

From the scantily clad to the grotesquely zombified to the obligatorily sexual, Halloween brought the creative spirit out of just about everyone who participated. Unfortunately, the holiday also invited those who try to incorporate race into their Halloween getups, a fad that, much like the candles in our Halloween pumpkins, needs to be snuffed out soon.

There came a point long ago when Halloween costumes became sexually charged instruments of promiscuity, and we seem to be reaching another social tipping point, as people began dressing as black victims of various hate crimes. Whether these Halloween delinquents are doing it in the name of satire or to make some other kind of sick point is moot: Keep race out of your costumes. A particularly disturbing phenomenon sees people witness a fellow party-goer dressed as Michael Brown—the young man whose controversial death sparked the Ferguson protests—and regard it with a chuckle, maybe even a thumbs-up. This attitude not only encourages this inherently racist and derogatory behavior, but it sends a message to other people that says racist displays are okay, a move that deliberately spits in the face of those who have braved the front line in the fight for racial acceptance and equality, a fight that still rages today.

The very idea of dressing or painting one’s face to mock another race is a sharp insult to an entire culture rooted in struggle and upheaval. On a more personal level, it is an attack on families who try every day to bring up their children to respect those around them. It is awfully difficult for children to regard the world with any semblance of respect when they see their contemporaries openly mocking their race, religion or culture. It may not seem like it, but something as innocent as painting your face black for Halloween could be detrimental to how society ebbs and flows, to how peoples co-exist. It is far from harmless.

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Unsigned editorials represent the opinion of the Campus Times Editorial Board.

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