Search results for racist costumes

It’s that time of year again!  Enjoy our collection of Halloween posts from years past or visit our Halloween-themed Pinterest page.

Just For Fun

• Sociologist Joel Best wishes you a happy and safe Halloween!
• A Hallowmeme costume: Women laughing with salad
• Fun and fear: The great equalizer
• Breast cancer-themed sexy leopard-ish costume ’cause why?

History

• Why do witches ride brooms?
• A brief history of Halloween
• The fright of marrying an ugly man

Politics and Culture

• Poisoned Halloween candy and the social construction of social problems
• Legal firm’s Halloween party mocks home foreclosures
• Lynching Palin
• Obama mask marketed as a “terrorist” costume
• Marking sex offenders
• Capitalism, candy, and Halloween

Race and Ethnicity

• Racist Halloween costumes for your dog
• Othering of undocumented immigrants with an “alien” costume
• A collection of racist Halloween costumes
• Asian hair for Halloween
• Appropriating Dia De Los Muertos at Halloween
• Raising consciousness about racist Halloween costumes
• “Indian” and “Ninja” as official costume categories
• Anne Skank: Trivializing and sexualizing the Holocaust for Halloween

Sexual Orientation

• Heteronormativity in couples Halloween costumes

Gender

• “Anna Rexia” Halloween costume
• What do sexy Halloween costumes for men look like?
• Halloween and the trivializing of women in men’s occupations
• Women dressing up like girls dressing up like women
• Even our skeletons have sex
• A Halloween gender binary
• When sexy overtakes all reason: sexy what!? (2014), sexy what!? (2012), sexy what!? (2010)
• Also in sexy costumes for women and girls: sexy femininity and gender inequality, sexy scholar, Harem girl, and the sexy body bag costume
• Compare to this vintage Halloween-inspired ad that urges women to be bewitching instead of half-naked

Gender and Kids

• How sexy stole “naughty”
• Halloween costumes: then and now (yes, they’re sexier)
• Tiny the Pterodactyl and the gender ideology of Halloween
• Girls: mean or queen
• Gender and kids costumes
• Dress up your little girl in a “little black dress”
• Comparing boy and girl “toddler” Cookie Monster costumes

The intersection of Race, Class, and Gender

• Halloween hall of sha me: the fat lap dancer costume
• Sexy “Indian” costumes
• An overview of raced, gendered, and heteronormative costumes

And, for no conceivable reason…

• Max Weber Jack o’Lantern (I carved it myself)
• Boo! The feminists are coming!

Lisa Wade, PhD is an Associate Professor at Tulane University. She is the author of American Hookup, a book about college sexual culture; a textbook about gender; and a forthcoming introductory text: Terrible Magnificent Sociology. You can follow her on Twitter and Instagram.

This post is a collection of racially-themed parties and events at college campuses.  They’re examples of one kind of simple individual racism that still perpetuates daily life.

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April 2017: The Kappa Sigma fraternity held a “Mexican Appropriation Party” where students costumed as maids and laborers.

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February 2016: Students held a “Mexican-themed” party with sombreros at Bowdoin College.

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October 2015: University of Louisville President James Ramsey held a staff Halloween party where stereotypically Mexican sombreros, maracas, and bushy mustaches were handed out to guests. Latinos account for 3.4% of the college’s student population.

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October 2015: Members of UCLA’s Sigma Phi Epsilon fraternity and Alpha Phi sorority threw a “Kanye Western” party. According to UCLA’s Afrikan American Newsmagazine, witnesses reported:

• “a group of women leaving the dormitory dressed in oversized shirts, gold chains, and form-fitting black dresses stuffed to caricature their butts.”
• a girl who had “taped a wine glass to her fake butt.”
• people “dressed in baggy clothing, bandanas, and gold chains.”
• “fraternity members [wearing] black face paint.”

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March 2015: Sigma Alpha Epsilon members and others at the University of Oklahoma sing:

There will never be a nigger in SAE.
You can hang them from a tree, but they’ll never sign with me.

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November 2014: “USA vs. Mexico” party hosted by the Kappa Alpha fraternity at Randolph-Macon College.

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September 2014: Entries in a “car costume” event by ENSOC, the Engineering Society of the University of Canterbury, mock ebola victims, the violence in the Gaza strip, and the Taliban. Discussed here and the university’s official response can be read here (thanks to Mark B. and another anonymous tipster for the heads up).

Earlier that year, in May, the same group also put out a song parody featuring an actor in blackface. The negative response to this incident was swift, but it did not apparently make much impact on the group.

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February 2014: Photos from an Olympics-themed mixer co-hosted by the Kappa Alpha Theta sorority and the Sigma Phi Epsilon fraternity at Columbia University, discussed here.  Costumes and gags reflected racial/national stereotypes.

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January 2014: The Tau Kappa Epsilon fraternity at Arizona State University hosted a so-called Martin Luther King, Jr party in which “mocked blacks by donning loose basketball jerseys, flashing gang signs and drinking from hollowed-out watermelons.” Photos online were tagged with #hood.

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November 2013: The Phi Sigma Kappa fraternity at California Polytechnic – San Luis Obispo threw a “Colonial Bros and Nava-Hos” party.

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October 2013: The Delta Kappa Epsilon sorority at the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, throws a 60s-themed party features “hippies” mixing with men in rice paddy hats. Faces blacked out. (Thanks to Holly for the link!)

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July 2013: The Alpha Delta fraternity and Delta Delta Delta sorority at Dartmouth College hosted at “Bloods and Crips” party (story here).

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June 2013: A “Cowboy and Indian”-themed graduation party thrown by a California State University, San Marcos student (via the California Indian Culture and Sovereignty Center). Ironically, the graduate majored in Anthropology.

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April 2013: This still is from a video celebrating the spring semester induction of new recruits into UC Irvine’s Asian-American fraternity Lambda Theta Delta (via Colorlines).  It features a fraternity member in blackface.  The entire video can be seen here.

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February 2013: Kappa Sigma Fraternity at Duke University throws an Asian-themed party. The invitation opened with “Herro Nice Duke Peopre!!”

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February 2013: Three hockey fans in the audience of a North Dakota high school semifinal donned Ku Klux Klan-ish hoods as a “joke,” they later said.

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October 2012: The photograph below depicts the members of the Chi Omega sorority at Penn State (source).  It was taken during a Mexican fiesta-themed party around Halloween. The signs read: “will mow lawn for weed & beer” and “I don’t cut grass I smoke it.”

The Vice President of the college’s Mexican American Student Association, Cesar Sanchez Lopez, wrote:

The Mexican American Student Association is disappointed in the attire chosen by this sorority. It in no way represents our culture. Not only have they chosen to stereotype our culture with serapes and sombreros, but the insinuation about drug usage makes this image more offensive. Our country is plagued by a drug war that has led to the death of an estimated 50,000 people, which is nothing to be joked about.

The president of the sorority sent out an apology.  Penalties are under discussion as of this posting.

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May 2012: The University of Chicago’s Alpha Delta Phi fraternity required pledges to wear “Mexican labor outfits” and sombreros while mowing the frat house lawn to Mexican ranchera music (source).

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March 2012: “Cowboys and Indians” party, University of Denver, hosted by the Lambda Chi Alpha fraternity and Delta Delta Delta sorority:

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February 2010: Members of the Athletics Union at the London School of Economics painted their faces brown and “dressed up as Guantanamo Bay inmates and drunkenly yelled ‘Oh Allah’…”  At least 12 students were found to have dressed up in costumes that were deemed “racist, religiously insensitive and demeaning.” Photos here and here.

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October 2009: University of Toronto students decided to dress up like the Jamaican bobsled team from Cool Runnings for Halloween (source).  Their costume, which earned them a “Costume of the Night” award at this college-sponsored party, included blackface.

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February 2007: Pictures from a “South of the Border” party at Santa Clara University in California.  Indeed, that IS a pregnant woman, cleaning ladies, and a slutty gang member.

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January 2007: A party in “honor” of Martin Luther King Day at Tarleton State University in Texas:

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January 2007: A party in “honor” of Martin Luther King Day at Clemson College in South Carolina.

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January 2007: A party in “honor” of Martin Luther King Day at University of Connecticut School of Law.

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May 2007: A Mexican-themed party at the University of Delaware (via Resist Racism).

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2007: Students at Wilfrid Laurier University, celebrating Nations of the World, represented Jamaica by putting on blackface (via @LindaQuirke).

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October 2001: A Delta Sigma Phi Halloween party at Auburn University (via).

Lisa Wade, PhD is an Associate Professor at Tulane University. She is the author of American Hookup, a book about college sexual culture; a textbook about gender; and a forthcoming introductory text: Terrible Magnificent Sociology. You can follow her on Twitter and Instagram.

It’s that time of year again!  We are about to embark on ten straight days of Sociological Halloween Images.  In the meantime, enjoy our collection of Halloween posts from years past or visit our Halloween-themed Pinterest page.

Just For Fun

• A Hallowmeme costume: Women laughing with salad
• Fun and fear: The great equalizer
• Mocking the sexy Halloween costume trend

Halloween, Politics, and Culture

• Poisoned Halloween candy and the social construction of social problems
• Legal firm’s Halloween party mocks home foreclosures
• Lynching Palin
• Obama mask marketed as a “terrorist” costume
• Marking sex offenders
• Capitalism, candy, and Halloween (pictured)

Race and Ethnicity

• Anne Skank: Trivializing and sexualizing the Holocaust for Halloween
• Othering of undocumented immigrants with an “alien” costume
• A collection of racist Halloween costumes
• Asian hair for Halloween
• Appropriating Dia De Los Muertos at Halloween
• Raising consciousness about racist Halloween costumes
• “Indian” and “Ninja” as official costume categories

Gender

• Men dressing up as fat women, apparently hilarious and disgusting!
• Gender and asymmetry: “beer man” and “beer girl” and “policeman” and “police girl”
• Halloween and the trivializing of women in men’s occupations
• Women dressing up like girls dressing up like women
• Even our skeletons have sex
• A Halloween gender binary
• When sexy overtakes all reason: sexy what!? (2012), sexy what!? (2010)
• Also in sexy costumes for women and girls: sexy femininity and gender inequality, sexy scholar, Harem girl, and the sexy body bag costume
• Compare to this vintage Halloween-inspired ad that urges women to be bewitching instead of half-naked

Gender and Kids

• Girls: mean or queen
• The difference between boy and girl costumes
• Gender and kids costumes
• Dress up your little girl in a “little black dress”
• Comparing boy and girl “toddler” Cookie Monster costumes

The intersection of Race, Class, and Gender

• Halloween hall of shame: the fat lap dancer costume
• Sexy “Indian” costumes
• An overview of raced, gendered, and heteronormative costumes

And, for no conceivable reason…

• Max Weber Jack o’Lantern (I carved it myself)

Lisa Wade, PhD is an Associate Professor at Tulane University. She is the author of American Hookup, a book about college sexual culture; a textbook about gender; and a forthcoming introductory text: Terrible Magnificent Sociology. You can follow her on Twitter and Instagram.

Course Guide for
ASIAN AMERICANS AND PACIFIC ISLANDERS
(last updated 04/2013)

Developed by Calvin N. Ho
University of California, Los Angeles

Social Construction of Race and Ethnicity

• Overview of the Social Construction of Race
• Whites, Blacks, and Apes in the Great Chain of Being
• Race, Ethnicity, and McDonald’s Marketing Strategies
• Editorial Cartoons in the Black Press During World War II
  
• Race and Censuses from Around the World
• Why Be Counted? And How?

Doing race and ethnicity

• Why Do the Japanese Draw Themselves as White?
• Race, Gender, and Likes on OkCupid
• Re-Racializing the Fortune Cookie
• How to Make a Chinese or Japanese Book Cover
• Ann Ducille on “Ethnic” Barbies
• Suomibhangra – The Good Brownface?

Racial mixing and multiraciality

• The New U.S. Racial Ideology
• Interracial Marriage on the Rise
• Race/Ethnicity, Assimilation, and Asian American Marriages
• Race, Response, and Dating Websites
• Interracial Marriage & the Meaning of Multiraciality

Colonialism, Neocolonialism, and Exotification

• Orientalism and the Consumption of the Other
• Colonial Circus: The Case of “Giraffe-Necked Women”
• Race, Subjectivity, and the Centrality of Whiteness
• Travel, Privilege, and the Crush of the Tourist Gaze
• Human Zoos at the Turn of the 20th Century
• “Development” Initiatives and the (In)Visibility of Power
• Colonialism, Soap, and the Cleansing Metaphor

Geopolitics

• Cartooning the US Chinese Exclusion Act
• Life in World War II Japanese American Internment Camps
• More World War II Anti-Japanese Propaganda
• Comedy that Kills Us: Demonizing Arabs and Muslims in the U.S.
• The Tsunami in Japan and the Minds of Americans
• China as a Strategic Political Threat

Racism, Discrimination, and Stereotypes

• Asian Stereotypes T-Shirts
• Racist Caricatures in Vintage Valentine’s Cards
• Why and How People of Color are Included in Advertising
• Jeremy Lin, ESPN Says, has a “Chink in the Armor”
• Responses to UCLA Student’s Racist Rant
• Ethnocentrism and Family Values
• Resistance to Racist Halloween Costumes
• Stereotype Promise
• Distracted by “Linsanity:” Hidden Racism and the Model Minority Stereotype

Gender and Sexuality

• How to Avoid Harassing Asian American Women
• The Dancing Hawaiian Girl, At Your Service
• Google Imaging the Continents
• Selling Feminine Passivity in a Cathay Pacific Ad
• Classy Asian Ladies Dating Site
• Race and the Problems with Measuring Beauty “Objectively”
• “Asian Rhinoplasty”

Statistics on Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders

• If Congress Looked Like Us
• 2010 Census Data on Racial/Ethnic Populations
• U.S. Racial/Ethnic Demographics: 1960, Today, and 2050
• U.S. Birth Rate Drops to Lowest on Record
• How Race Changes the Relationship Between Religion and Politics
• Race/Ethnicity and Voter Turnout

Geography of Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders

• Racial/Ethnic Shifts in Metro Areas
• Maps of Racial/Ethnic Populations in U.S. Cities
• Interactive Maps of U.S. Racial/Ethnic Distributions
• Interactive Map of Immigrant Settlement Patterns in U.S.
• 2010 Census Data on Residential Segregation
• Maps of Surnames
• Database of Human Development Information
• Modern Language Association’s Interactive Website

Labor Market Segmentation and Socioeconomic Mobility

• Gender, Race/Ethnicity, and the Pay Gap
• Why Variance Matters: Race, Education, and Income
• The Growing Racial Wealth Gap
• Lifetime Earnings Gaps, by Sex and Race/Ethnicity
• Post-High-School Pathways of Men of Color
• Asian Americans and Unemployment
• Ethnic Enclaves, Linguistic Segregation, and Asian Unemployment
• New CEOs: The Diversification of the Corner Office
• Race, Sex, and Casting Hollywood Films

Enjoy our collection of Halloween posts from years past or visit our Pinterest page with all of our Halloween-related imagery:

Just For Fun

• A Hallowmeme costume: Women laughing with salad
• Fun and fear: The great equalizer (pictured)
• Mocking the sexy Halloween costume trend

Halloween and Politics

• Legal firm’s Halloween party mocks home foreclosures
• Lynching Palin
• Obama mask marketed as a “terrorist” costume
• Marking sex offenders on Halloween

Race and Ethnicity

• Dressing your dog up like a racial caricature
• Anne Skank: Trivializing and sexualizing the Holocaust for Halloween
• Othering of undocumented immigrants with an “alien” costume
• A collection of racist Halloween costumes
• Asian hair for Halloween
• Appropriating Dia De Los Muertos at Halloween
• Raising consciousness about racist Halloween costumes

Gender

• Dress up your little girl in a “little black dress”
• Men dressing up as fat women, apparently hilarious and disgusting!
• Gender and asymmetry: “beer man and “beer girl”
• Anna Rexia, the costume (also in plus size!)
• Gender and kids costumes
• Halloween and the trivializing of women in men’s occupations
• Girls: mean or queen
• The difference between boy and girl costumes
• Women dressing up like girls dressing up like women
• Even our skeletons have sex
• In sexy costumes for women and girls: when sexy overtakes all reason, sexy femininity and gender inequality, sexy scholar, Harem girl, and the sexy body bag costume
• Compare to sexy Halloween costumes for men and this vintage Halloween-inspired ad that urges women to be bewitching instead of half-naked

The intersection of Race, Class, and Gender

• Halloween hall of shame: the fat lap dancer costume
• Sexy “Indian” costumes
• An overview of raced, gendered, and heteronormative costumes

And, for no conceivable reason…

• Max Weber Jack o’Lantern (I carved it myself)

Enjoy our collection of Halloween posts from years past:

Race and Ethnicity

• Dressing your dog up like a racial caricature (pictured).
• Othering of undocumented immigrants with an “alien” costume.
• A collection of racist Halloween costumes.
• Asian hair for Halloween.

Gender

• Men dressing up as fat women, hilarious and disgusting!
• Gender and asymmetry: “beer man and “beer girl.”
• Anna Rexia, the costume (also in plus size!).
• Halloween and the trivializing of women in men’s occupations.
• Girls: mean or queen.
• The difference between boy and girl costumes.
• Women dressing up like girls dressing up like women.
• Even our skeletons have sex.
• In sexy costumes for women and girls: when sexy overtakes all reason, sexy scholar, Harem girl, and the sexy body bag costume.  Compare to sexy Halloween costumes for men and this vintage Halloween-inspired ad that urges women to be bewitching instead of half-naked.

The intersection of Race, Class, and Gender

• Halloween hall of shame: the fat lap dancer costume.
• An overview of raced, gendered, and heteronormative costumes.

Halloween and Politics

• Lynching Palin.
• Obama mask marketed as a “terrorist” costume.
• Marking sex offenders on Halloween.

And, for no conceivable reason…

• Max Weber Jack o’Lantern.

Lisa Wade, PhD is an Associate Professor at Tulane University. She is the author of American Hookup, a book about college sexual culture; a textbook about gender; and a forthcoming introductory text: Terrible Magnificent Sociology. You can follow her on Twitter and Instagram.

This Course Guide is in progress and will be updated as I have time.

Disclaimer: If you’re thinking about writing a course guide.  I totally overdid it on this one!  It doesn’t have to be nearly this extensive.

Course Guide for
INTRODUCTION TO SOCIOLOGY
(last updated 5/2012)

Developed by Gwen Sharp
Nevada State College

C. Wright Mills and the Sociological Imagination

Intersection of biography and history as illustrated by:

• Year of birth and life success
• Kids’ exposure to technology
• Baby naming practices and media trends
• Other historical trends in baby names

“the capacity for astonishment is made lively again”

• The background of “Scotch” tape
• Applying the anthropological lens to “dark, mysterious Austria”

Karl Marx/Marxist analysis

• Marxist analysis of current economic crisis
• Invisibility of workers

Emile Durkheim

• The dangers of the ecological fallacy: measuring “sin” statistically

[Because the course guide has gotten to be so long, I’m putting the rest of it after the jump.]

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