EXCLUSIVE: Campaign Encourages One-Star Reviews of 'Racist' Halloween Costumes To Win Scholarship

ashley.rae | October 27, 2015
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An online campaign is encouraging young people to write one-star reviews of culturally appropriative Halloween costumes for the chance to win a scholarship.

DoSomething.org is an organization dedicated to helping “young people” “make the world suck less.”  DoSomething allegedly has 4.3 million participants spread over 240 countries.

The “1 Star for Hate” campaign instructs young people to “flood online retailers with one-star reviews of racist costumes.”

The problem, according to DoSomething, is “Halloween costumes like ‘Pocahottie’ perpetuate cultural stereotypes.” The alleged solution is to “tell people why costumes like ‘American Brave’ are cultural appropriation -- in other words, why they exploit elements of a culture and why that's not cool. That way, maybe people will wear something that isn’t offensive on Halloween.”

In order to combat this cultural appropriation, DoSomething provides links to two allegedly culturally appropriative costumes and instructs people to enter in negative reviews.

For each negative review, participants are entered into a drawing for a $3,000 scholarship.

Although the grand prize for flooding the Internet with negative Halloween costume reviews is a scholarship, DoSomething insists the prospective college students are unable to think of their own bad reviews. Therefore, DoSomething provides its own prewritten chatspeak-filled review for individuals to enter as a review:

 “Wow! I bought this costume last year and LOVED IT! Not only was it completely inappropriate and offensive -- it fit really well too! J/K. We want this costume taken down!

I thought wearing this costume would boil an entire culture down to a racist stereotype. And I was right: Turns out, I was representing the culture in a super inaccurate and unflattering way! We want this costume taken down!

The best news: I wore the costume on Halloween to be funny. Then the next day I took it off, and I was just me again. Isn’t it awesome that I didn’t have to deal with the racism or oppression some people actually experience on a daily basis? Best Halloween ever! LOL BUT SERIOUSLY: take the costume down.”

After people are done submitting their negative reviews, DoSomething encourages participants to take a screenshot of the page and their negative reviews: “Every review you submit earns you another change to win the $3,000 scholarship.”

Participants are then prompted to enter the total number of negative reviews and explain “why this campaign is important to you.”

A FAQ section for campaign attempts to clarify “why wearing these costumes isn’t okay.”

“When you wear a costume like ‘Gypsy Maiden’ or ‘Asian Princess,’ you're boiling an entire culture down to a racist stereotype that inaccurately represents a whole group of people,” DoSomething claims. “If you don't belong to the group of people the costume inaccurately represents, you're pretending to be someone a 'joke' for one night, and don't have to deal with the racism and oppression people of that group actually experience on a daily basis.”

Previously, DoSomething’s “1 Star for Hate: Transphobia” campaign forced retailers to take down their Caitlyn Jenner Halloween costumes.

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