Last year, Students Teaching About Racism in Society (STARS) launched the “We’re a Culture, Not a Costume” campaign that received more than 16.3 million viewers. This year, STARS has organized a new set of posters in response to last year’s feedback.
The “We’re a Culture, Not a Costume” poster campaign was created to raise awareness of racially insensitive costumes.
Taylor See, event coordinator of STARS, said the sub-headline and layout of the posters were chosen to supplement the efforts made by the initial campaign.
“This year is a response to last year’s feedback in regards to people not understanding why racially insensitive costumes are offensive,” See said.
Last year, STARS released five posters, each with a person holding a picture of someone dressed in a stereotypical representation of that person’s ethnicity. The posters read “This is not who I am and this is not okay.”
Six new posters will be dispersed throughout campus by the end of the week and are set to take a more direct approach.
“This year, there are different ethnicities included, the design is more straightforward in its approach, and we used all live models,” See said.
Keith Hawkins, president of STARS, said that the old posters are being sent to other schools as OU prepares to launch the new ones.
“Our old posters from last year we are sending to other schools, but the new campaign will start probably mid-next week,” Hawkins said. “I think we’ll be printing around a couple hundred for in print, but they’ll also be going on Facebook, Twitter and Tumblr.”
Including both printing and costumes, the campaign costs approximately $350.
“Most of the funding comes from the university as a part of SAC,” Hawkins said, “but the money that goes into costumes is money that comes out of our account, which is in part from last year’s campaign.”
Both representatives of STARS expressed hope that people will become more aware of their actions and the negative effects a racially insensitive costume holds.
“There are those who will think it’s stupid, there are those who will think it’s interesting, ponder it and let it be,” See said. “Then there are those, like we got last year, that will have had their minds changed and take a minute to stop and consider the negative implications of their actions.”
ne991410@ohiou.edu
