As long as you don’t dress up as something ridiculously offensive, you should feel free to dress up as whoever or whatever you want, no matter what you look like. Still, as a black chick, it’s sometimes a little hard to dress up as my favorite characters without “black” as a modifier. I can’t just dress up as Luna Lovegood, I would be Black Luna Lovegood.
That’s not to say that people of other races wouldn’t experience something similar, or white people dressing up as black characters (sans blackface, of course) wouldn’t be modified as “white.” But aside from the fact that there are just more white characters and celebrities out there to dress up as, white is seen as default in our society. So it’s easier to slip between characters and personas without as much notice. I mean, white people cosplay as anime characters all the time, and nobody is calling a white girl White Sailor Moon. But if a black girl had the same costume? She’d definitely be regarded as Black Sailor Moon. Find the lie.
This isn’t the end of the world, but if you don’t want to deal with being the black version of something this year, you should totally consider one of these 14 black women to dress up as this Halloween.
