Racist Halloween Costumes?

American OBV interns Oksana Trofimenko and Danny Mucinskas examine how one organisation in America has started a protest against "racist" Halloween costumes.

A student organisation at Ohio University is challenging some Halloween costumes as racist. Students Teaching Against Racism in Society (STARS) have initiated a poster campaign targeting racist costumes. The posters depict five minority students holding photographs of costumes related to their respected races, with the slogan “This is not who I am, and this is not okay.”

The controversial Halloween costumes include a man in Arab dress with a bomb around his chest, and a typical Japanese geisha.

The STARS campaign raises the question: when do Halloween costumes shift from being simple fun to racially insulting?

Obviously, dressing as an Arab terrorist for Halloween and associating terrorism with Muslim culture and faith is not appropriate. It is also bad taste. But where do you draw the line?

One commentator on a story about the STARS campaign wrote,

“If your costume depends on you making yourself up to look like a different race, it's not a costume. It's an insult.”

But the problem of racist Halloween costumes seems to originate not when people just dress in the clothing of a different race, but rather when people condescend or oversimplify a specific culture.

Khalia Yukiko Horne, an American Asian college student, says,

“If you decided to wear a geisha costume for Halloween I wouldn't think you were racist. If the costume was a kimono and a fan it'd be no big deal for me; however, if you were carrying yourself in a way that mocks the particular roles that Geishas were historically involved in, and you are asserting your cultural superiority then you are acting like a racist.”

Therefore, the ability of costumes to offend depends not only on the actual costume, but on how the individual wearing it acts.

Much depends, then, on the intent of the wearer of the costume. Just because someone dresses up as a geisha for Halloween doesn’t mean that they assume that all Asian woman are Japanese Geishas.

It simply means that they have chosen to represent themselves as a specific persona. When it comes to Halloween, common sense and good judgment should be a priority.

Oksana Trofimenko and Danny Mucinskas

Picture: Poster campaign by STARS against costumes which stereotype ethnic groups