Halloween, everyone’s favorite holiday. You dress up as your favorite characters and run around with friends, going door to door, hoping you pick the right house with the biggest candy bars.

But when does dressing up as your favorite character lead to offending other ethnic and cultural groups?
Now yes, we all know Halloween is for fun and shouldn’t be handled as it were politics, but just like in every fun activity, there’s guidelines in some shape or form.

I almost guarantee you that the night of Halloween, you won’t find anyone wearing black mask on there face, pretending that they’re an African American. But I can assure you that a common costume will be a Native American.

Now which one sounds worse to you? Obviously the black mask (or black face) sounds worse right? Funny enough, they are both just as bad.

To the average person like me I would never think of anything bad about dressing up as a Native American, but to see someone in black face would be outlandish to me. But that’s not fair, both of these costumes are doing the same thing, pretending to be of another race, they are just as bad.

This raises the question, “What if I wanted to dress up as Michel Jackson, or even Pocahontas, would that be considered morally wrong?”

Think about it, I understand that when we pick a certain person to dress up as, their ethnicity or race is the last thing we think about if at all. But you want to represent that person as you go to your parties or go around your neighborhood trick or treating.

I don’t believe it’s wrong to dress up as one of your favorite idols or even a famous celebrity. However, I do believe that it’s important to take in consideration how other people may portray the costume you are wearing.

Will they see their favorite Disney character Aladdin, or will they see you dressing up as an Arab?