Culture as a Costume?

With Halloween passing around a couple months ago, a lot of people were offended with the cultural appropriation that people had done with their costumes. I can see how it might be offensive, and I agree with the girls from Teen Vogue; it shouldn't happen. As a Filipino I don't know how it feels to see people wear clothes from the Philippine culture.

For those of you who don't know what it looks like, here is what the issue is.

Halloween is a time for dressing up as people or characters that are out of the ordinary. By dressing up in cultural clothes, it looks as if the person is dressing up as someone out of the social norm. The girls were expressing their frustration with seeing people dress up like them on a day like Halloween. I assume that they are feeling mocked, or taunted, which seems to be the case most of the time.

How can we stop it? Well, for starters, companies should stop making these "costumes" and selling them as such. They are the cultural clothes of others and we should respect them. By continuing to sell these clothes as costumes, we are saying that, as a society, we do not see their culture as something real and true, therefore it looks and seems like we only see them as characters in a fantasy world.

Although it hasn't been a big issue in my neighbourhood, or in my family, it is still a recurring problem which needs to stop. As respectful members of today's society, we need to spread the word about this issue. Also, we live in Toronto, a very multicultural city, we should be embracing and respecting the diversity in cultures as opposed to mocking them on Halloween, a day that is meant for fun and laughs.