Cultural Appropriation, A Perennial Issue On Halloween

Facts from the original

• The article was reported by Leila Fadel and published October 29, 2019.
• Halloween is around the corner and someone will metaphorically step in it with an insensitive or outright racist costume.
• Costume stores still stock an "Arab Sheikh" outfit complete with a sinister mustache.
• A "Ride a Camel Adult Male Costume" can be ordered.
• "Mexican" costumes include wide sombreros, ponchos, and handlebar mustaches.
• Some people darken their skin to pose as a black or brown person.
• Many people now understand the degrading and dehumanizing history of blackface.
• Every year there is a generic "Native American" costume for a woman or man featuring fringe, fake suede, feathers, and braids.
• Henu Josephine Tarrant is a New York-based artist and performer of the Ho-Chunk, Hopi, and Rappahannock tribes.
• Tarrant said Halloween in the Native community is like a big eye roll and becomes exhausting.
• Tarrant said that as other costumes are rightly deemed too offensive to wear because they dehumanize oppressed groups, Native American costumes are always stocked.
• Tarrant said the issue goes deeper than what someone is dressed like, and that the tropes and stereotypes are rooted in a historically violent past.
• Tarrant said the costumes depict Indigenous people as a monolith frozen in time.
• Tarrant said the costumes reflect how Native people look to non-Native Americans and what Native people are to them.
• The costume style is based on clothes worn during a violent time in the 19th century as white settlers moved west and displaced Indigenous people.
• Tarrant described that period as including Dakota wars, other wars, removal acts, starvation, famine, tuberculosis, smallpox, and many sicknesses and violence.
• Tarrant said some Dakota and Lakota people held ghost feasts and ghost dances during that destitute time.
• The ghost dance shirt was worn for spiritual protection from violence.
• Tarrant said most Native American costumes in shops seemed to be modeled off the ghost dance shirt style.
• Tarrant said Native people are not seen as modern-day people, which makes it difficult for people to understand that what they are doing is offensive.
• Tarrant said "cowboys and Indians" has long been ingrained into Americana.
• Online campaigns #notyourcostume and #mycultureisnotyourcostume have helped spread awareness.
• Many college campuses run campaigns on cultural sensitivities during Halloween with best practices to avoid racist tropes and cultural appropriation.
• A SoutheastNative tweet on October 20, 2019, argued that a "baby momma nana" does not have authority to permit disrespect of the cultures of hundreds of tribal nations, and that Native people and culture are #NotYourCostume.
• Teacher Jess Lifshitz sends a letter home to the parents of her fifth-graders in Northbrook, Illinois, near Chicago.
• Lifshitz noticed a couple of years ago that one or two kids came in costume each Halloween and the costume made her uncomfortable because it portrayed a stereotyped image of a group of people or seemed like putting on the identity of another person as a costume.
• Lifshitz got proactive, and the letter asks parents and caretakers to help kids understand why dressing in a caricature of someone else's identity is hurtful.
• A Jess Lifshitz tweet on October 20, 2019, said she sends the letter home to avoid problematic or racist Halloween costumes during the school celebration and will go over it with students to learn how to do better.
• The letter said costumes should not become opportunities to turn a person's identity into a stereotyped image.
• The letter said students might dress as a famous person or character whose identity is different from their own, but parents should reinforce the importance of not darkening skin or using makeup to change a child's skin color to match the person they are dressing up to be.
• The letter said students are often unaware of the long history these traditions have of causing harm and need help understanding why it can be hurtful and problematic.
• In class, Lifshitz has lessons on identity throughout the year and all the parts of ourselves that go into identity.
• Lifshitz said having those conversations ahead of time allowed kids to see why somebody else's struggle should not make up someone's Halloween costume.
• Lifshitz said once you help children see these things they do not ever want to create that situation, and the kids are eager to make the right choice once shown the problems that exist.
• The article includes an image of Native American protesters standing outside the Phoenix office of a retailer of "sexy Native American" costumes last year, photographed by Terry Tang/AP.
• The image caption says that for some ethnic and racial groups, Halloween has long been haunted by costumes that perpetuate stereotypes and instances of cultural appropriation.