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Gallery 2 · Posted: Oct 27 2011 02:25 pm

'Racist' Halloween costumes stir debate
S*T*A*R*S Website

Quote:

An Ohio student group's campaign has started a firestorm of debate in Canada and abroad over whether wearing Arab, Spanish and other ethnically inspired garb is proliferating stereotypes and feeding racism.

The campaign, by Ohio University's Students Teaching About Racism in Society (STARS), features posters headlined "We're a culture, not a costume." Underneath the line, "This is not who I am, and this is not okay" are students of various ethnic backgrounds holding up photos of people wearing blackface, or dressed up as natives, Geisha girls or people depicting "terrorists," for example.

Contacted by CBC News on Wednesday, a spokeswoman with the Athens, Ohio-based university said STARS was receiving an overwhelming number of requests for media interviews around the world, and may not return calls immediately.

STARS had garnered more than 8,000 views on president Sarah Williams's blog, but the comment section was disabled due to inappropriate and hateful comments from some visitors. Still, Williams told ABCNews.com the campaign was worthwhile: "We wanted to highlight these offensive costumes because we've all seen them. We just wanted to say, 'Hey, this is not cool. This is offensive and this shouldn't be taken lightly.' It's offending a culture and people should be aware."

While I admit that SOME costumes can be on poor taste (Arab Bomber for one), really, isn't this yet again overreacting? Also notice that even though they're bitching about stereotyping, there's no Redneck, Business tycoon, or child molesting Catholic Priest costume among these (which of course, exist...). So once again, is this like some sort of N-word principle or something, in which it's only racist if it's done by a white guy?

Posted: Oct 27 2011 02:27 pm

i think theyre making mountains out of molehills, personally.

its fucking halloween. people let loose and just relax. everyone is so fucking PC nowadays that you cant say or do anything w/out everyone getting up in arms about it.

Posted: Oct 27 2011 02:34 pm

Halloween is meant to be fun, and someone going off because someone else chose a costume that might be considered slightly offensive is offensive to me. I could see if it was someone dressing up and running around screaming racial slurs or something, but a costume banking on a stereotype is funny and if you can't even joke about a stereotype anymore, how are you going to break them?

Gallery 2 · Posted: Oct 27 2011 02:39 pm

And because it's almost impossible to avoid obvious joke, there's only one person who can take on this group...

Posted: Oct 27 2011 02:42 pm

I said it when I first saw this on facebook, and I'll say it again. Geisha and terrorist are not cultures. They are a small subset of certain cultures. An Arab student holding a picture of a guy dressed as a terrorist with the line 'It's a culture, not a costume.' is enforcing the stereotype more than the costume ever will.

I am currently trying to make my own poster of me holding a picture of a lumberjack costume. I encourage one of you to do the same with a redneck picture, or a frat boy, or a valley girl.

Posted: Oct 27 2011 02:44 pm

Valdronius wrote:

I said it when I first saw this on facebook, and I'll say it again. Geisha and terrorist are not cultures. They are a small subset of certain cultures. An Arab student holding a picture of a guy dressed as a terrorist with the line 'It's a culture, not a costume.' is enforcing the stereotype more than the costume ever will.

I am currently trying to make my own poster of me holding a picture of a lumberjack costume. I encourage one of you to do the same with a redneck picture, or a frat boy, or a valley girl.

ill get a bottle of tequila & a big ass sombrero and sit on a street corner taking a siesta

Posted: Oct 27 2011 02:56 pm

If I had a color printer I'd do the redneck one. Maybe I can just work some photoshop magic and take a picture of me holding a blank piece of paper and edit in the picture I want to use. I'm going to have to practice the pitiful look they all have though, because I can't seriously be upset about possibly being linked to being a redneck in the way they are upset about their costumes.

Posted: Oct 27 2011 03:08 pm

ha.. this comment made me laugh

Quote:

because of this, i'm going to wear all of the above three costumes

Gallery 2 · Posted: Oct 27 2011 03:23 pm

username wrote:

ha.. this comment made me laugh

Quote:

because of this, i'm going to wear all of the above three costumes

"Look out! It's Mexican Geisha Terrorist!"

Posted: Oct 27 2011 03:36 pm

And now I'm even more embarrassed to attend this college. First a lame ass occupy, and now this bullshit. I thought hipsters and college know-it-all hippies (oh yes, there are a lot of those here too) would be a little more uncommon this close to West Virginia, but it appears I was sadly mistaken.

Joined: Oct 27 2011 Posts: 2

Almost anything can be seen as racist if your over-sensitive about things. Maybe it's just me, but I just wouldn't care enough to be offended by something like this.

(Oh yeah, hello forums.)

Posted: Oct 27 2011 03:56 pm

welcome to the forums Tailspin... nice name

Posted: Oct 27 2011 04:10 pm

This is so fucking dumb.

You guys have covered the points already but seriously.

Dumb.

Posted: Oct 27 2011 05:34 pm

I'm gonna do the Frat boy one.

Posted: Oct 27 2011 05:50 pm

Beach Bum wrote:

If I had a color printer I'd do the redneckone. Maybe I can just work some photoshop magic and take a picture of me holding a blank piece of paper and edit in the picture I want to use. I'm going to have to practice the pitiful look they all have though, because I can't seriously be upset about possibly being linked to being a redneck in the way they are upset about their costumes.

That's what I plan to do Beach Bum, just take a picture of me with a blank piece of paper, find a picture of a lumberjack costume online, and photoshop it.

Also, username, they've already said that all Mexican people are Juan Valdez. Sorry.

Posted: Oct 27 2011 06:15 pm

heh... i thought juan valdez was colombian... i guess its all the same. anything south of the border is mexico

Posted: Oct 27 2011 06:33 pm

Well, there goes my blackface Vaudeville costume...

Posted: Oct 27 2011 06:36 pm

Who's the second picture offending? Half and Half people?

Posted: Oct 27 2011 06:42 pm

I have no idea who it is offending but I think the first one on their site is offensive to vampires. The girl must be a vampire and hates the Twilight movies.

Posted: Oct 27 2011 06:43 pm

Posted: Oct 27 2011 06:55 pm

lol

Posted: Oct 27 2011 06:56 pm

If you all could, please reverse the slogan, as I have done here:

Also, those are awesome BG. If you could make mine look that good, it'd be awesome.

Posted: Oct 27 2011 07:00 pm

My favorite so far

I found a couple on knowyourmeme already. They even have blank ones to work with.

Posted: Oct 27 2011 07:18 pm

LOL I love this so much more now.

Some of my Favorites so far.

Gallery 2 · Posted: Oct 27 2011 08:09 pm

I smell a meme cooking.