Halloween costumes, by their very nature, are a joke. If I want to honor my military veteran uncle who died in Vietnam do I dress up like him at Halloween so that I, as my uncle, can mingle with the likes of Harley Quinn, the Joker and Batman? Her intent was NOT to belittle Dr. Tweedy but in her ignorance of both the history blackface performance (and not just the paid entertainment variety) and the nature of Halloween she DID in fact belittle the seriousness of racism. Professor Schurtz need only remove the wig and wipe off the make-up and, in the long run, resume a career within a majority white academic milieu or retire with a nice fat cash settlement. Thanks to all the reactionaries and racists who voted in 2016, Black people and other people of color will be dealing with racism day in and day out for a long time to come.