I Ani't Scare of No Ghost

Life is scary, but what's in my head is scarier.

🎭 Halloween, Masks, and the Black American Spirit

For many Black Americans, Halloween isn’t just a night of costumes, candy, and make-believe — it’s a mirror to the realities we face every single day. Every morning, we wake up and step into a world that asks us to wear masks: professionalism masks, survival masks, and masks that protect us from being misunderstood, feared, or stereotyped. We navigate spaces where our authenticity can be misread, our confidence mistaken for arrogance, our culture labeled as “too much.”

So when Halloween comes around — when the world decides today it’s okay to wear a mask — for many melanated souls, it’s just another day of being what we already are: people surviving in a world constantly demanding performance. But it’s also something more profound.

At its root, Halloween was once about honoring the dead, facing fears, and transforming darkness into art, laughter, and release. It was a spiritual moment — a portal where people faced what haunted them. For Black Americans, that energy resonates. Because we’ve carried centuries of haunting — from generational trauma to the ongoing weight of systemic oppression — yet we still find ways to dance in the moonlight, to laugh loud, to create beauty out of pain.

The American culture may have commercialized and perverted the holiday into something shallow, but there’s power in reclaiming it. For us, it can be a night of liberation. A time to show up as whoever we want to be — without the fear of judgment or expectation. It’s an opportunity to express creativity, sensuality, magic, and fullness.

Being Black in America means already living behind and beyond many masks. But Halloween can be the one night where we control the narrative. We decide who we are. We embrace the inner child, the artist, the hero, the lover, or even the monster — on our own terms.

So when you see Black folks out celebrating, dressed as kings and queens, vampires and warriors, angels and ancestors — understand this: it’s not just a party. It’s a ritual. It’s resistance. It’s self-expression. It’s freedom.

Every day, we fight to exist in a world that questions our right to be.

But tonight?

We get to be. Fully. Boldly. Unapologetically.

Happy Halloween, kings and queens.

Tonight, the mask isn’t to hide — it’s to reveal.