In 1992 Alladin came out - wearing blackface in a costume for that was definitely not the norm. You'll find tens of thousands of pictures of kids dressed up in poofy hats and sweeping pants whose parents knew not to face paint them to be more accurate (and these are kids who'd get facepaint to dress as the lion king or a ghost).

It may be that it was just Boston Massachusetts being a haven for the political correctness but if you know anything about Boston you'll probably know we have a long sad history of being racist assholes (especially to PoC, Italians, Irish, Germans, Catholics... even Native Americans! So I guess pretty much everyone).

I'm happy to admit there are areas of the US where blackface is still normal... but I think the adults are still aware of how problematic it is.

That's a terrible concept masquerading as equity. In the future I suspect we'll know better, but the double standard crap in this era is awful. There is no correct way to have racism, you either fight all of it, or not.

This mentality of punching up / down simply leads to outcomes of acceptable / unacceptable racism and that's not the way to combat racism and inequality.

My dude, I hate racists.

I also have a sense of humour, so stuff like comedy and costumes aren't places where I tend to judge people. If I did, I'd think that most black and brown comedians were racist, and that most white ones were pedophiles or rapists. But I don't.

My comment was in response to the question about people using face during that time, and it seemed to be more common than some of us can remember.

I don't know anything about the guy in question, and it seems silly to judge him based on a basketball player costume he wore on Halloween almost 20 years go. We should use some common sense here.

I don't remember it too well, but I highly doubt it was handled well at all. On another occasion, I went as an Indian for Halloween one year*, but my parents were working that day, so I went to Awanas (a sort of church thing if you're not familiar) for a few hours before trick or treating. Turns out, Awanas doesn't allow costumes, but let me stay. As the only kid in costume. While the rest of them were super smug about not being in costume, and the main church dude spent the whole time talking about how Halloween is evil. No one even mentioned the racist ass costume I was in.

*Yes. With dark make up. I was 9. That was also the last year I ever dressed up for Halloween. My dad still doesn't fully get why that wasn't an okay costume. My mom didn't understand at the time, but does now.

I was also a hobo one year. Maybe we should start vetting kids Halloween costumes. Or at least mine.