This year's list comes courtesy of the LSPIRG (more on them in a moment) via the University of Washington and the always watchful Jason Rantz.
As you can see, the University of Washington wants you to be excited and have fun, which you really can't do absent a lengthy list of rules and guidelines the transgression of any one of which will get you labeled a racist.
The list is part of #IAmNotACostume, a campaign focused on creating an environment in which students of all races, ethnicities, and backgrounds walk around each other as if on eggshells fearful of saying, doing, or even thinking the wrong thing lest they cause offense thus creating an enduring environment of fear, mistrust, resentment and entitlement.
Kind of gives you a special feeling inside, that feeling being not unlike mild nausea.
The earlier mentioned sponsors, the Laurier Students' Public Interest Research Group, or, "LSPIRG," (gesundheit), has a vision (they all have visions).
Our vision is to act as a reliable support to student and community members building and sustaining movements that tear down systems of violence and replace them with equitable and just communities. We stand for anti-oppression, community care and activism.
I have to admit that sounds more high-minded than my vision which mostly revolves around pie. On the other hand, my vision is less likely to result in oppression, censorship, and the suppression of free expression so it does have that going for it.
Also, the pie.
On to their list. One recurring theme is cultural appropriation.
A culture is not a costume.
Interesting, and by "interesting," I mean "the exact opposite of true."
A costume is culture.
At some level, whether a comic character, a pirate, even a profession like "doctor," it's all culture. It's certainly "identity" as they note in their expanded index of offense:
"It's likely that your culture and/or identity has not been historically and currently trivialized, mocked or viewed as "funny" or "scary."
Oh? Irish anyone? Greek?
Been there, lived that.
Check out these entries of LSPIRG's forbidden costumes:
An Egyptian person
A Mexican person
To clarify: You can only dress up as an Egyptian on Halloween if you are an Egyptian.
Kind of wrecks the whole concept of a costume, don't you think?
"What are you going as?"
"Me!"
Other entries:
Day of the Dead
Why? Day of the Dead is a cool Mexican holiday. Unless you're Mexican you are not allowed to celebrate it?
Nothing like marginalizing someone else's culture by setting it aside as being off-limits.
However, if they come for the tacos...
A Romani (sometimes referred to using the slur, g*psy)
They literally censor the word "gypsy."
Someone needs to tell Cher.
A prison inmate
Oh, okay.
I'll note they don't ban dressing as a recently paroled recidivist inmate released on cashless bail and wreaking havoc in the streets because that's equity or something.
A mentally ill person in a psychiatric facility
Fair enough. They apparently all work at LSPIRG anyway.
A transgender person (there's a difference between dressing as a trans person as a joke/mockery and dressing in drag. Many folks use Halloween as a safe opportunity to play with their own gender and drag has a long history of being connected to Halloween)
So is that a yes or a no?
A Hula Dancer
I don't think a century goes by that I don't hear about a marginalized hula dancer being targeted for hateful violence by a racist mob or maybe just people who really hate poi.
A homeless person
I imagine if you're homeless, halting cultural appropriation would be pretty high up on your list of priorities, probably somewhere between obtaining food and finding a place to sleep.
Costumes that make fun of sexual and gendered violence (e.g. "flasher")
This is the part where you start running out of things to be offended at.
Costumes that degrade or dehumanize sex workers, dancers etc.
I don't wish ill on anyone and I try not to question other people's life choices, but how exactly do you degrade a sex worker? Have you seen a sex worker? Exactly to what level do you have to bring that costume that would be considered degrading?
It also begs the question, are you then permitted to dress as a sex worker if it's not degrading? How exactly would that look?
You'll note what's not banned.
Farmers, the earlier mentioned Greek togas and Irish outfits, rednecks and hicks, country singers, mobsters, and so on.
If only there was a pattern here...
And finally:
You also have a right to take it in the playful and harmless spirit in which it was intended.
Just throwing out another option!
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