Every year Halloween roles in and everyone puts on their favorite Halloween costumes. You want to dress up like some Kung Fu master, she wants to dress up like a stripper and he wants to dress up like, well, you know, a pimp. This may have been an innocent and rather routine practice until now. If you plan to be dressing up in your Halloween costume as an Arabian Sheikh or a Mexican peasant or even as a hip-hop diva think twice because you might just be labelled a racist.
This is what some students out of Ohio University are campaigning against even as Halloween on 31st October gets near. They are arguing that Halloween should not be used as an excuse to stereotype different cultures based on racist Halloween costumes. The team of ten calling themselves Students Teaching About Racism in Society (STARS) have gotten such an overwhelming response they may be taking it countrywide. Now, if only all those pimps and strippers could marshal such a powerful lobby group… I’m just saying.
