OHIO UNIV. STUDENTS: 'WE'RE A CULTURE NOT A COSTUME!'

This Halloween, if someone comes up to you and calls you out for wearing some costume that’s a little ethnically offensive, don’t blame political correctness. Blame yourself for the lack of respect you would damn sure demand for yourself. Ohio University student Sarah Williams started a campaign on campus after she saw a fellow student in blackface last Halloween, and it is taking off. Big ups to Ms Williams. This was a long time coming!
ColorLines

An awful lot of people agree with the infamous words of “Mean Girls” character Cady: “Halloween is the one night a year when girls can dress like a total slut and no other girls can say anything about it.” She could have gotten more agreement still by adding, “Halloween is the one night a year when people think it’s OK to dress in totally inappropriate and racist costumes.”

Ohio University student Sarah Williams says she was at a Halloween party last year when she snapped a picture of someone in black face. “It angers me and it’s unacceptable,” Williams said in an interview with Colorlines.com on Monday. So she and some fellow students decided to do something about it—and they’ve captured national attention in the process.

“This is happening across the country. It’s not just here in Athens, Ohio,” says Williams, who is the president of a student group at Ohio University called Students Teaching About Racism in Society (STARS). The group, made up of 10 students, has created an educational campaign called “We’re a Culture, Not a Costume” that juxtaposes images like the one Williams saw last year with an actual African-American student. It adds a simple statement: “This is not who I am, and this is not okay.”

The posters have already taken social media by storm, going viral on Tumblr and Facebook pages around the country. As of Monday evening, they had been shared more than 50,000 times online, according to Williams.

In a statement on Monday, Williams explained a bit more about why STARS decided to do the campaign.

“These posters act as a public service announcement for colored communities. It’s about respect, human dignity, and the acceptance of other cultures (these posters simply ask people to think before they choose their Halloween costume). Although some Halloween costumes aren’t as racist as the blackface minstrel shows back in the day, they harken to similar prejudices. What these costumes have in common is that they make caricatures out of cultures, and that is simply not okay.”

The posters will be passed out throughout the dorms on Ohio University’s Athens campus. The group’s Facebook page reports other schools, including Columbia University, are interested in distributing the campaign on their campuses, too.

STARS produced the campaign entirely on its own, with no funding from the school. But the campaign has made such a positive impression on students and faculty that the Division of Student Affairs stepped in to help pay for posters to get printed.

Controversy surrounding racially offensive Halloween costumes and theme parties have become  a routine part of the holiday on college campuses. Last fall, one Northwestern University dean went so far as to send an advance email to the whole student body, urging them to think carefully before getting decked out. “Halloween is unfortunately a time when the normal thoughtfulness and sensitivity of most NU students can be forgotten and some poor decisions are made,” wrote Burgwell Howard. In 2009, Northwestern had drawn unwanted national attention when party pics of two varsity athletes dressed in graphic black face made social media rounds.

Of course, the trend stretches past college campuses. The black-face costume of choice last year was Antoine Dodson, the young, poor black man who became a troubling Internet sensation after his outburst to a local news reporter covering his sister’s sexual assault. Memes circulated all year, in which producers morphed his screaming words into songs and audio clips. It was no surprise when, come Oct. 31, his Facebook page filled with pictures of white people in black face, wearing afro wigs and bandanas and making gang gestures.

In 2009, Target made headlines by selling an “illegal alien” costume that featured an orange jumpsuit and an alien mask. Kohls previously sold a “Ghetto Fab Wig.” Colorlines.com rounded up these and other perennially popular racist costumes last year.

In short, costumes mocking people of color are an annual Halloween epidemic. Williams says STARS has a simple message for classmates planning to join the so-called fun again this year: “It’s not funny. STARS doesn’t believe that making a costume of a culture or race is funny. It only reinforces stereotypes.”

Williams, who’s black, plans on being Janelle Monae on Halloween.