After a weekend of Halloween festivities and with more trick-or-treating on the horizon, students gathered on Tuesday night not to discuss their party plans, but rather what they described as a problematic narrative behind insensitive Halloween costumes.

The discussion, spearheaded by the Harvard College Sustained Dialogue group and led by professor Caroline Light, director of undergraduate studies in Studies of Women, Gender, and Sexuality, was meant to provide students with a platform to express their views on how the appropriation of cultures implies oppressive undertones.

“We’ve always wanted to do a dialogue on Halloween costumes and how they perpetuate stereotypes,” said Judy Park ’14, co-director of Harvard College Sustained Dialogue.

Sustained dialogue is part of a larger national and international campus network where university students participate in a model of dialogue, attempting to bridge issues of diversity and difference through personal experience with the goal of galvanizing change on campus, according to Humza S. Bokhari ’14, the other co-director of the group.

At the discussion, students expressed concerns over racially and culturally insensitive costumes, such as “Blackface,” Trayvon Martin, and terrorist costumes for young children–all of which they argue put minorities on the periphery and whiteness as the norm in society.

“It is difficult for people to think critically about these costumes because of our desire for color blindness,” said Light. She then went on to describe the consumer culture that allows ‘blackness’ and ‘ghetto culture’ to have market value.

The event also incorporated dialogue on the fetishization and sexualization of women from marginalized groups, such as geisha or ‘Pocahottie’ costumes.