![pocahontas halloween costume pocahontas halloween costume](https://www.coolest-homemade-costumes.com/files/2012/12/pocahontas-trio-32137.jpg)
POCAHONTAS HALLOWEEN COSTUME SKIN
Help them understand that a culture – or someone’s skin is not a costume. Are their costumes appropriate? Or are they culturally appropriating? Talk about it if they're older than toddlers. Think twice this year when sending your kids out for trick-or-treat. That's fine, but marginalized groups have had enough. You can't please everyone and I get that. actor Will Rogers and Pocahontas are a few famous native Americans. I consider myself an open and sensitive person but I know I am still learning. and the dress and customs of Native American peoples were depicted in whatever. Unless I take a Sharpie to my son (and suddenly learn to draw) or buy custom temporary tattoos (yes, they exist) and hope it would be 85 degrees at the end of October (let's face it, that could totally happen, or it could snow) this costume wasn't going to happen in an appropriate way. It was Maui’s tattoos that made him a difficult costume for a child. My son already has brown skin so I wasn't looking to replicate that. The problem with a Maui costume is that it's basically putting on the brown tattooed skin of the character. I may not be an overt racist but my inability to see subtle racism in the cultural appropriation of Halloween costumes and the institutional racism that normalizes the corporate marketing of Disney’s costumes means that I’ve still got work to do. It can be difficult to understand but it’s important to recognize. This cultural appropriation business is tricky stuff. Pocahontas is still a costume you can buy from Disney, but please don’t. I thought I had gotten it right, but it was still an insensitive costume representing an oppressed population. I did not alter her skin nor did she wear a headdress. I bought the dress from Disney and braided her hair. But wait, you say, she dressed as the character, not the culture. I dressed my daughter as Pocahontas when she was four. When a costume is based on culture, you fictionalize their strife. A culture is not a costume and if you treat it as one, it’s offensive. I didn’t know it at the time but it was so wrong.
![pocahontas halloween costume pocahontas halloween costume](https://live.staticflickr.com/2311/2247570255_355a60f3dc_b.jpg)
We tied a baby doll to our backs and put feathers in our hair to go trick-or-treating. An easy homemade costume to make when I was a kid was a Native American girl, a “little Indian girl” we would say.