Every year around Halloween, the world prepares itself for the impending onslaught of cat, angel, devil, football player, and convict costumes. Halloween is always seen as the time of fun dressing up and trying something you’ve never been to before.

However, every year members of minorities have to see their own cultures culturally appropriated. There are the people who think they look Indian by wearing saris or belly-dancing outfits (which are actually Middle-Eastern). There are the couples who think they’re cute by dressing up as Jasmine and Aladdin. There are the thousands of girls who dress up as Native-Americans, as if Native-Americans are just a costume and not a historically significant group of people. Some people even think that by wearing a poncho, sombrero, and mustache, they automatically look Hispanic.

These Halloween costumes not only encourage the rampant stereotypes running through our society, they embed them even deeper. When people see these costumes, most of the time, they just say that the person looks cute and that they love their outfit. By not speaking out and calling out these people and pointing out the fact that they are obviously being culturally insensitive, we are inherently allowing them to continue this. By turning a blind eye, we are doing more to promote this type of behavior.

We need to make it known in our society that cultural appropriation and cultural insensitivity and not things that we will tolerate. We cannot boil down Indian culture to just the sari. We can’t stereotype all Hispanic people to just wearing a poncho and a sombrero. We can’t make it so that Native Americans are just a costume and not a group of ethnically and historically important people.

We need to stand up and create a change. We can’t allow these types of outdated stereotypes to continue.