What's good y'all? You're listening to Coatswitch from MPR. I'm Jean Demby.

And I'm Karen Greaksby-Bates.

It's that time of year again, y'all. It's Blackface Event, y'all know what it is.

Every October in the run up to Halloween, there are costume parties of course.

Naturally.

Right. And there are controversies about those costumes and those costume parties.

Because people somehow decide it's a good idea to show up in Blackface or Yellowface.

Or this dreadful polka hottest costumes.

They're wearing traditional Mexican clothes and calling it a costume.

All the time, all the time. So a public service announcement to y'all,

you know, your grainy videos, you take on your phones from your Halloween costume party,

will eventually find their way onto TikTok and go viral and become a problem for you probably.

A big problem. And it doesn't really matter if it's plain and simple ignorance or genuine malice.

It's easy for those celebrations of the Mary and the Cobb around Halloween

to brush up against our country's very dark past.

Like this thing that happened with my neighbor.

I remember this story, Karen.

Oh, what a mess. What a mess. All right, just remind us what happened.

Our neighborhood is a predominantly Black neighborhood.

It has been for, you know, 60, 70 years.

But that's changing quickly as more white folks move in.

And one relatively new neighbor and his wife are really, really into Halloween.

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