There were many creative costumes over the Halloween weekend, but while out in Fargo and on social media, I encountered a plethora of offensive and racist costumes.

While I understand that some people may not understand how a costume is offensive or may think they are being funny, it is important to note that we live in a society where the boundaries for costumes are made public and the importance of conscious decision-making is stressed heavily.

Friday evening, a tweet spread rapidly and widely across the U.S. This tweet included a picture in which a man, later discovered to be Cole Paulson, was kneeling while wearing blackface and a black wig. He was holding a sign that said “Will stand for money” in reference to National Football League players taking a knee.

This photo was screenshotted and posted to Twitter with the message, “Do your thing, Twitter.”

Although the costume was met with outrage and an abundance of backlash, it has since been deleted.

Many of the responses received were describing how completely baffling the situation was.

There were also responses that created a discussion not only about the racism involved with the costume, but also made statements to point out this mockery completely missed the point of the Black Lives Matter movement and the reasoning behind NFL players taking a knee.

Many Black Lives Matter activists commented on how it is not about the money or the flag or the soldiers. NFL players are taking a knee for equality and voicing how they feel about the treatment of African-Americans in this country.

Not only did this young man’s costume offend African-Americans by attempting to imitate their skin color, but he also misunderstood an extremely important movement and instead played into the stereotype that causes so much pushback.

After years of blackface being removed from the theater and countless discussions on how offensive and racist blackface is, you would think that it is obviously not okay.

Apparently, it isn’t as obvious as I thought. This was not the only case of blackface this weekend. While at the bars Friday and Saturday there were multiple costumes that included paint on the costume wearer’s face in order to make their skin darker.

This topic has been discussed to such an extent that only blatant ignorance can describe a manner in which someone thinks that it is still okay to imitate the culture of another human being. It is really quite simple. All you have to do is avoid changing your skin color in an attempt to imitate a race that is not your own.