On a trip to the drug store around six weeks ago, I noticed a ten-fold increase in the amount of candy on the shelves. It meant only one thing:
Halloween was coming.
I’m no Scrooge when it comes to Halloween. For me, the holiday is a way to spend time with people I care about. I did my fair share of trick or treating as a child. I’ve gone to my share of Halloween celebrations. I’ll be celebrating it all weekend this year. After having the holiday canceled last year because of the pandemic, having many celebrations resume this year is a step that some things are returning to what they were before.
However, I don’t get overjoyed over it either, because the way that certain people choose to celebrate it has made me uneasy for many years.
The Cultures of Black People and People of Color Are Not Costumes
It angers me how some white people decide to use the traditional clothing, hairstyles and skin color of BIPOC as costumes for a few hours. Blackface, Indian headdresses, Geisha Girl attire, and sugar skull makeup aren’t costumes. They’re our very essence, our culture. It’s insulting how white people deem each other to be cool or edgy while wearing our traditional attire for a few hours while they mock us for wearing the same things the next day.
And don’t get me started on how white people are now beginning to appropriate Dia de los Muertos, the Mexican holiday where they celebrate their dead where alters are filled with the favorite foods of the departed and gifts such as candy sugar skulls are given to friends and family. The same practices that several centuries ago, some white people’s ancestors deemed savage are now the same ones that their white descendants think are so amusing when they dress in mariachi costumes or wear sugar skull makeup.
White people appropriating BIPOC cultures they aren’t a part of diminish the meaning that our traditions hold in our communities. It reduces our practices to mere caricatures. Appropriating our cultures sends a message to BIPOC that white people only care about us as entertainment, not as unique human beings.
The Real Meaning of Halloween
Halloween’s earliest roots date to the ancient Celtic tradition called Samhain, where people wore costumes in an attempt to ward off ghosts. It’s long since been commercialized as our capitalist society uses the holiday as an excuse to sell candy and costumes, but some of its ancient roots are still apparent.
In addition, the word Halloween means “hallowed evening,” or a day that honored saints, or the dead. Early Europeans celebrated the day as All Hallows’ Eve, which was the eve of All Saints Day, which is celebrated on November 1st. Over the centuries, the term All Hallows Eve got shortened to Halloween.
Just about every racial and ethnic group on the planet has traditions that honor their ancestors. However, due to colonization and slavery, many BIPOC may feel cut off from their connections to their ancestors because colonizers deemed our rituals barbaric, thus putting an often violent end to them.
The underlying meaning of Halloween is so profound and beautiful. I believe that Halloween is one of the few holidays where white people celebrate their culture in some authentic fashion. Yet, why do they feel the need to appropriate the Mexican holiday Dia de los Muertos, when they have their own cultural tradition that honors their dead? Why do they think that celebrating Halloween by wearing blackface, which dehumanizes and mocks me, is so necessary?
How Whiteness Diminishes Halloween
The answer lies in whiteness. White supremacy downplays or erases European ethnic groups, such as the Irish, French, and so on, as well as their traditions, in favor of adhering to the idea that white skin is superior to dark skin. White supremacy reveres dominance and violence. It abhors reflection and appreciation. A white person who wears blackface or a Geisha Girl costume on Halloween is asserting their dominance over BIPOC. They are reducing our traditions and very souls to mere stereotypes. Appropriating BIPOC isn’t harmless fun.
In the case of Halloween, white supremacy not only harms BIPOC, but also harms white people. Maintaining white supremacy means that white people must diminish or erase their ethnic cultures in favor of a bland, slick, soulless culture that lacks depth and meaning.
A meaningful holiday such as Halloween can be reduced to candy sales at Walmart. It’s confusing for a group of people to celebrate death for one day out of the year when their traditions suppress grief and hides death for the other 364 days a year.
It’s no wonder that some whites latch on to a tradition like Dia de los Muertos, where death isn’t an ending but a continuation of life. Ironically, some whites find the connection with the spirit world in a culture they disparage because they lack the same connection in their culture. Their culture tends to commercialize or sanitize the spiritual.
A holiday that I associated with fun in childhood means something deeper now that I’m aware of its roots. And it isn’t even a part of my cultural heritage. If we let it, Halloween taps into our collective psyche that longs for a connection to our ancestors. It shouldn’t require mocking those that don’t look like you to do it.
©Vena Moore 2021
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Originally published in Equality Includes You on Medium. Republished with permission.
Photo: iStock
