I confess.

Somewhere out there a photo may exist of me wearing a white sheet.

Before someone finds it and posts it on Twitter causing the floodgates of indignation du jour to open up promoting the hordes of anonymous snap judgement protectors of political correctness to post away demanding my head for wearing the preferred garment of the Ku Klux Klan, let me explain.

It was Halloween. I was 10 years old.

I weighed as much as I do today but was 14 inches shorter meaning one size fits all costumes weren’t true in my case.

My mom raising four kids on her own wasn’t exactly flush with money.

So we dug through the bowels of the linen closet to find the oldest bedsheet available that mom could justify cutting two holes for eyes out of it.

Of course it hadn’t been “pure” white for years. It also had a nice musty smell to it.

In today’s world where the Spanish Inquisition has nothing on the Internet Inquisition the fact I wore a white sheet for Halloween as a 10-year-old would be interpreted by those that thought the Salem Witch Hunt trials was the finest moment in political correctness would be seen as proof positive I’m a white supremacist.

You may think that is a stretch, or is it?

If you are making a one-dimensional judgment based on a photo you see of someone in their youth absent of the context of the original era as well as when or why the photo was taken colored very nicely with a view of the world that may be limited to 2019, it is highly likely that more than a few people will automatically equate the wearing of a white sheet as a 10-year on Halloween as proof positive of KKK membership.

This is why you should be very, very careful about your children this Halloween.

The biggest fear you should have as a parent should not be razor blades in candy (the thing urban myths are made of), distracted drivers, or your kid eating enough Halloween candy to ultimately pay for your family dentist’s next trip to Hawaii.

Instead, it might just be what your child wears as a costume could derail their chances of getting into college or destroy their career 30 years down the road.

You may think that is over the top but who 50 years ago would have had second thoughts about their kids dressing up as the Lone Ranger and his sidekick Tonto?

And whatever you do, allowing your kids to venture out as a cowboy packing “six shooters” and then post a photo of them in costume twirling their guns on social media.

It may get your kid rejected from Harvard 12 years down the road after an admissions official researches the deep reaches of the bottomless pit of random information that the Internet is and brands him as a “gun nut”.

The new norm for Halloween — or what some people would like to see it as — unfolded at Michigan State University  several years ago.

The university brass had issued a directive that Halloween costumes that are “racially, culturally or ethically based” can only be worn by those that are part of the group that is being portrayed.

Those that violate the decree have been warned they could end up being hauled before the university’s “bias-response team”.

That’s the American higher education equivalent of the communist tribunals that oversaw re-education efforts in China and North Vietnam.

Though they may not face death, run afoul with the thought and speech police these days at an American university and you could face “corrective” action leading up to expulsion.

And if it is considered a sin now to violate the directive, rest assured some open minded foot soldier in higher education’s version of the Mao cultural war will certainly dig into social media to penalize people for PC transgressions committed years ago that fail to comply to the latest cleansing movement.

Keep in mind what the Michigan State directive means. Lin-Manuel Miranda’s critically acclaimed musical “Hamilton” would not be welcome on campus based on the decision to use African American actors to portray George Washington, Adam Burr, Alexander Hamilton, and Thomas Jefferson.

Only a complete dunce would wear blackface, place a noose somewhere as a “joke”, or dress as the Imperial Wizard on Halloween.

Having said that let’s not forget such transgressions of displaying a noose in a public school a few years back was done by teachers in Southern California that were self-described liberals.

They admittedly had no idea of the historic significance that has turned a noose — that was once used to hang horse thefts of all colors — into a symbol of overt racism taken to its most hideous conclusion.

As for blackface, it seems those of all political persuasions seem to have had a bad slip in judgment in their younger days before realizing there is more to the world than their own little corner.

It would be nice if we are going to go back in time to nail people that we at least come up with a consistent punishment.

If past sins judged by modern standards is a career destroying act, then make sure those that are identified as being part of the pious group based on the transgression get the same treatment and penalty as the unwashed.

Things that clearly have well-established racist connotations should be viewed as hate speech.

But to blanket issue a definition of inappropriate speech — which Halloween costumes fall under free speech as a form of expression — that can literally have no boundaries for interpretations of slights, perceived and otherwise.

There is not that big of a stretch to go from Michigan State’s edict on Halloween costumes and the day where your social media posting of your 6-year-old kid wearing a low-cost, no thrills ghost costume made from a white bed sheet can ultimately brand him for life as something he never was or will be.

And given how the NBA contorted itself 1,001 ways and then some at the altar of the almighty dollar to kiss the feet of China’s leaders after then Houston Rockets General Manager Daryll Money’s Tweet in 2019 in support of Hong Kong dissidents, they should have brushed up on Mao’s Cultural Revolution.

It's the one that resulted in the wholesale destruction of culture, antiquities, and historical sites plus led to widespread prosecution as well as the death of between 500,000 to 2 million people.

And you want to know how such an inhumane travesty gets started, look to actions of “institution” from the NBA to Michigan State ripped a page from Mao’s playbook and put an extension of the Cultural Revolution into practice.