Multiple colleges across the country have advised their students against wearing costumes this Halloween that are outright unacceptable or could be perceived as perpetuating stereotypes. One university is taking it a step further, looking down on dressing up as icons of the American West’s culture.
The University of Colorado Boulder has warned students against wearing anything that portrays a particular culture as “over- sexualized”, such as geishas or ‘squaws’, or mocks an ethnicity. Students also are being told not to dress up as cowboys, an American tradition that a university spokesman frowned upon.
“When you dress up as a cowboy, and you have your sheriff badge on and a big cowboy hat, that’s not a representation of a cowboy, that’s not a representation of people who work on a ranch, that’s not a representation of people who live in the West, that’s kind of a crude stereotype,” university spokesman Bronson Hilliard, who said he was from a Montana ranch family, told Campus Reform.
Additionally, students are being asked not to host parties with offensive themes that reinforce negative representations of cultures being associated with “ghetto”, “white trash” or crime.
“If you are planning to celebrate Halloween by dressing up in a costume, consider the impact your costume decision may have on others in the CU community,” Dean of Students Christina Gonzales said in a letter to students. “… [M]aking the choice to dress up as someone from another culture, with the intention of being humorous or without the intention of being disrespectful, can lead to inaccurate and hurtful portrayals of other peoples’ cultures.”
The letter is a suggestion, not a mandate, Hilliard said. While the school does frown upon such costumes, students would not be formally punished for wearing them.
Ohio University and the University of Minnesota also have asked students to be cautious in their choice of Halloween garb.
(h/t The Daily Telegraph)
