‘Offensive’ Halloween Costumes

Halloween is just the latest holiday to fall prey to politically correct sensitivities.

Inglewood Elementary School, for example, cancelled All Hallows Eve festivities in its Philadelphia, Pa., suburb, citing worries the holiday was “filled with religious overtones.”

Religious liberties scholar Charles C. Haynes says some parents could view Halloween events at school as an imposition of religion on their children.

“If you can’t have Jesus in December, why can we have witches in October?” he told PennLive.com.

“Right now school officials should be sensitive that for many people witches, ghosts and demons have religious connotations, however sanitized they have become in (the) culture,” Haynes said. “For these people, they are in fact religious implications.”

In Milford, Conn., some parents were outraged by the school district’s recent decision to discontinue popular Halloween parades at the city’s schools due to “numerous incidents of children being excluded from activities due to religion, cultural beliefs, etc.,” as a letter from the principal put it.

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One parent declared she didn’t see how children of diverse cultural backgrounds were being excluded.

“I think they’re excluding themselves,” she told The Connecticut Post.

She and more than 200 others signed a petition calling for a restoration of the Halloween parades.

“These are our American customs and traditions and we should not have to give them up because others find them offensive!” it read.

In the face of controversy and “misinformation,” school administrators subsequently reversed their decision and reinstated the parades.

“Everything is so P.C., kids are not allowed to have any fun anymore.”

Similarly, Seth Boyden Elementary School in Maplewood, New Jersey, canceled its annual Halloween activities, The Daily Caller reported. A statement to parents explained, “In the past, in-school celebrations of Halloween have made many of our students feel left out.”

Ken Trump, president of the National School Safety and Security Services, said the “witch hunt” on Halloween results from the fact that we are “a society of political correctness on steroids. In some school communities, you have to scratch your head and go, ‘Really?’” As one parent complained, “Everything has gotten to the point where it’s so P.C. that kids are not allowed to have any fun anymore.”

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It’s not just kids who are victims of the P.C. police. Adults are victims as well.

E! Online posted a piece warning readers that when considering costumes, “There’s a way to be topical and funny without being completely offensive and inappropriate.” Dressing like the racially confused Rachel Dolezal, for example, might require wearing blackface, which “is an awful, awful idea” — as actress Julianne Hough discovered to her chagrin two years ago when she heavily bronzed her face to go trick-or-treating as a black character from the Netflix series “Orange is the New Black.” The P.C. backlash was tremendous.

Naturally, trick or treating as Caitlyn Jenner is out of the question.

Don’t consider dressing as any sort of racial or cultural stereotype, in fact, lest you draw serious accusations of “cultural appropriation” — the notion that “colonialist oppressors” who borrow elements from other cultures are disrespecting them and stealing from them.

“When you dress up (on Halloween) as a culture that you are currently oppressing, or have subjugated in the past, you’re just … reinforcing current power structures in an offensive way,” says E! Online.

The outlet suggests that, before donning a costume, you ask yourself, “If a photo of me in my costume ended up online, would I be branded a horrible human being?”

Because, thanks to the omnipresence and mob mentality of social media totalitarians, that is exactly what breaking the increasingly rigid taboos of political correctness will get you — branded, tarred and feathered as a horrible human being. Or worse.