With Halloween coming up this week, many young people across the country will be attending costume parties or even wearing costumes to class. While I don’t want to be a wet blanket on these festivities, I do want to make sure everyone is considerate of those around them during the holiday. Dressing up like a teacher is offensive.
I am a teacher, as my father was, and my father before him. I come from a proud tradition of people that have not always been treated respectfully. Because there is only one of us per classroom and far fewer of us than students on campuses, we are a consistent minority. We are sometimes treated as exotic “others” that participate in strange rituals and speak in unusual dialects. Some may not even be aware of the emotional harm they are causing when they dress up because they are clouded by their student privilege, and dressing up as teachers is a form of mockery that serves to reify existing institutional prejudices.
Articles like this tell people how to dress like an English professor. Identifying us by our crumpled khakis and thrift-store dresses unfairly casts us as slovenly and serves as a painful reminder of perpetual income inequality.
Costumes like these are not okay:
And think of what message we are sending to our children!
I am a teacher, as my father was, and my father before him. I come from a proud tradition of people that have not always been treated respectfully. Because there is only one of us per classroom and far fewer of us than students on campuses, we are a consistent minority. We are sometimes treated as exotic “others” that participate in strange rituals and speak in unusual dialects. Some may not even be aware of the emotional harm they are causing when they dress up because they are clouded by their student privilege, and dressing up as teachers is a form of mockery that serves to reify existing institutional prejudices.
Articles like this tell people how to dress like an English professor. Identifying us by our crumpled khakis and thrift-store dresses unfairly casts us as slovenly and serves as a painful reminder of perpetual income inequality.
Costumes like these are not okay:
And think of what message we are sending to our children!
Dressing up like teachers demonstrates a lack of cultural awareness and a propogation of stereotypes. Assuming we all wear tweed blazers or weird robes or wire-rimmed glasses reduces us to visual caricatures, rather than scholars and community leaders. Even worse is dressing up in sexualized versions of teachers. Such costuming is demeaning and further perpetuates our objectification and an unsafe, predatory environment.
That some of these outfits can be purchased for profit online with a quick Google search proves the exploitation my people encounter in America’s capitalist hegemony.
Now is the time to put a stop to costumes of teachers. We must move beyond such superficial categorizations and begin a dialogue in which dressing as teachers is not only discouraged, but forbidden. Everyone deserves to feel safe on their respective campuses, and I urge everyone to stand with me against such blatant insensitivity.
This is my heritage, not your Halloween gag.
That some of these outfits can be purchased for profit online with a quick Google search proves the exploitation my people encounter in America’s capitalist hegemony.
Now is the time to put a stop to costumes of teachers. We must move beyond such superficial categorizations and begin a dialogue in which dressing as teachers is not only discouraged, but forbidden. Everyone deserves to feel safe on their respective campuses, and I urge everyone to stand with me against such blatant insensitivity.
This is my heritage, not your Halloween gag.