Long gone are the days in which Halloween in America was a free-for-all and anyone could dress up as anything without having their internal cancel button pushed.

Just the same, publications like this one must make an annual point of reminding everyone that culturally inappropriate costumes are not the move. And every year, someone makes it to the Summer Jam screen proving that they didn’t know or simply don’t care.

Take these idiots in Utah who went viral last Halloween for dressing in blackface as criminals, even prompting a response of denunciation from Gov. Spencer Cox. One might forgive them for being “just teenagers,” but this is the demographic that spends so much time buried in devices that they should know better.

As someone who grew up on 1990s Hip-Hop and sketch comedy show material that could never come out today, I’m far more forgiving of White people who saw fit to douse themselves in skin-darkening makeup decades ago. Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau wore blackface in 2001 for a party at a school where he taught, as well as when he was in high school in the early 1990s. But we like him, he apologized and everyone moved on.

However, when Billy Crystal came on the Oscars in blackface as Sammy Davis Jr., or when Julianne Hough dressed up as Uzo Aduba’s Crazy Eyes character from “Orange is the New Black” in 2013 – bronzer and all –  everyone damn well knew better.

Or, at least, they should’ve. Which makes one wonder if they thought they were free from the repercussions. At the very least, Crystal and Hough needed better people around them. 

I’m convinced, even in this big year, that some folks genuinely don’t know any better. So, good people, if you’re planning to step out to a Halloween party this evening, let me help get you straight with a (non-exhaustive) list of costume don’ts.

Unless you’re Robert Downey Jr. in a hilarious 2008 satirical film, blackface is never okay. But also…leave the Native American garb on the shelf. I’m pretty sure there’s a photo or two somewhere of me in the 1980s as a bony kid with loin cloth, a feather or two in my hair and a bow with a suction dart as an arrow.

But in an era in which we’ve all but abolished Columbus Day, it’s entirely out of pocket to rock feathered headdresses and war makeup or dress in Pocahontas costumes. It would come off especially grody this year when there’s an Oscar-caliber historical fiction film, “Killers of the Flower Moon,” about how White people killed off Osage Nation natives for their oil money, currently in theaters.

Same thing with the calavera – or sugar skull – makeup that signifies Mexico’s Día de los Muertos (Day of the Dead). It’s a completely different holiday from Halloween, so wearing the skull along with some bloody Halloween accoutrement is not a good look. Neither is traipsing around in a sombrero, poncho and exaggerated mustache like the clueless whites are wont to do every Cinco de Mayo.

Also, I’ve already seen more than one White person this year in a “fat suit” rocking what comes off like an exaggerated version of Black women’s proportions. Matters not how much you love Cardi B – Black people don’t wish to see you dress up as what you think she looks like in your head.

Once again, this list is far from exhaustive, so discretion falls on your shoulders. Ask yourself “How many people might my costume offend?” before taking the time to sew something up. For example, does it make sense to wear a COVID germ costume when there’s a good chance that you’ll run into the loved ones of at least one the 7 million or so people it killed in the last few years?

We can’t do common sense for you.

Since you’re likely reading this on Halloween proper, there’s a good chance you’ve already embarrassed yourself at a party somewhere, so there’s already next year.

But if you’re stepping out tonight and this article has you in a jam, just pivot and go as Barbie and/or Ken. Not enough people are doing that this year.

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Dustin J. Seibert is an opinion writer and native Detroiter living in Chicago and Miami. He loves his mama slightly more than he loves music and exercises every day so his French fry intake doesn’t catch up to him. Find him on Instagram and the erstwhile Twitter: @Justice2K.