Halloween is right around the corner, and with it comes a whole host of really offensive costumes. A lot of people feel that on this night they should be one of three things: 1)extremely inappropriate 2)extremely hypersexualized or 3)extremely racist. A few years ago I worked for a company that worked with kids, and during the Halloween season we dressed up for almost the entire month of Halloween and every year the company would hand out the rules sheet of dressing up which read essentially, no scary costumes, no sexy costumes, and no costumes portraying another culture or race that is not your own. I had to give them kudos in particular for the last rule (you would think all three would be common sense) because for some reason people think the rules of common deceny or what is racist do not apply to them on this day.
For example, in this video, (if you didn't watch it), you have real Native Americans wearing these ridiculous offensive costumes that they see every year which portray them and their culture as something they aren't. These costumes and others representing other cultures continue to marginalize, stereotype, and dehumanize real people who exist. And in case you weren't sure if a costume was racist or not, the titles on the packages pretty much sum them up with things like "Ghetto Fabulous Wig," "Instant Arab," "Chop Suey Specs," "Reservation Royalty," "Sassy Squaw," "Gangsta Guy," "China Doll," "Bolly Ho," and the horrible list goes on.
A few years ago when Lady Gaga was huge, I wanted to dress up like her b/c all my friends were doing versions of her in all her videos (I know, roll your eyes). In every way possible I look the opposite of her, but never in my mind did it ever even occur to me to run out and buy some white face paint and paint my skin to match, yet every Halloween you see people darkening/lightening their skin and muddying up their faces to supposedly look Black, Latino, Indian, Asian, or Middle Eastern. These costumes aren't honoring the culture. They are specifically designed to make fun of them in the most racist way possible. Considering the thousands of costumes out there, to sit down and decide, racist (fill in the blank) costume is the way you want to go, and then even worse, to impliment it, really says something about you...mainly that you are a)racist and b)inexplicably clueless, but mainly a.
Dwayne Wade sparked intense outrage by both black and white people when he dressed up as "Justin Timberlake." He even hired a make-up artist to help him make the offensive transformation. It's wrong no matter what race you are!
Julianne Hough thought it was okay to portray Crazy Eyes from Orange is the New Black in black face. She later apologized claiming it wasn't meant to be racist. Note, her other friends who dressed up as other black characters from the show did not go this route for what should have been obvious reasons. 
These people...seriously?
In my image search under the heading "racist costumes," there was one consistent theme which you can verify with the same search. On 99% of all the packaging for these racist costumes, the model is almost always white because I honestly don't think any self respecting person of any of the races portrayed would volunteer to model for a costume like that for the very reasons that they are indeed racist. If you want people to stop calling you a racist, stop doing racist things. Stop illustrating reason number 105 why there is still such a crater hole of a divide in this country between people. This isn't even something hard that you need to think long and hard about.
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