Two trick-or-treaters, believed to be juvenile males, were out collecting candy Wednesday night in Lower Macungie Township sporting blackface and Confederate flag capes as their costumes.

That's according to a family who confronted the unidentified pair about their apparently racist costumes, then posted video of the exchange on Facebook.

Esperanza Menendez, 17, told lehighvalleylive.com she was taking part in the township's trick-or-treat night off Route 100 behind Mack Trucks, with her 10-year-old and 18-year-old sisters, as well as a friend.

The four girls encountered the pair at the corner of Gehman Road and Scenic View Drive, and they couldn't believe what they were seeing.

"I was so enraged when I saw these kids, I never thought I'd see something like that in person honestly," Esperanza Menendez said Thursday. "The fact they walked around ... dressed like that and they had a bag full of candy and no one said anything, it just makes me so angry."

There were many children and families out trick-or-treating, but no one said anything to the boys about how wrong their costumes were, said the sisters' father, Rafael Menendez. He shared a photo and video of the family encountering the costumes on Facebook.

"I have been down that block (on Halloween) and there's always tons of parents around," Rafael Menendez said. "Everybody was looking, but nobody was saying anything."

The Facebook post contains profanity as the pair are confronted on the doorstep of a home.

Comments on the post showed others shared in the family's shock.

"This is UNREAL. Good for your daughter for standing up to it," one comment read.

"They need to be held accountable as well as their parents. Completely maddening and hateful," another Facebook user wrote.

"Who the hell were they trying to be? Super Racism?" read another reaction.

One commenter asked, "Since when is wearing a Confederate flag racisit (sic)?"

Blackface has been in the news since Megyn Kelly, the former Fox News Channel personality, was fired last Friday from her morning show on NBC after triggering a furor by suggesting it was OK for white people to wear blackface at Halloween, The Associated Press reported.

Roots of the denigrating use of blackface were cemented in the minstrel shows that entertained Americans during the 1800s into the 20th century.

According to the National Museum of African American History & Culture:

"Historian Dale Cockrell once noted that poor and working-class whites who felt 'squeezed politically, economically, and socially from the top, but also from the bottom, invented minstrelsy' as a way of expressing the oppression that marked being members of the majority, but outside of the white norm. Minstrelsy, comedic performances of 'blackness' by whites in exaggerated costumes and make-up, cannot be separated fully from the racial derision and stereotyping at its core. By distorting the features and culture of African Americans -- including their looks, language, dance, deportment, and character -- white Americans were able to codify whiteness across class and geopolitical lines as its antithesis."

In Lower Macungie on Halloween, the sisters first thought the costumes were some kind of joke.

"I wasn't sure if it was supposed to be a joke because that kind of stuff is scary and, you know, it's Halloween," Esperanza Menendez said. "But it still made me feel sick."

As they were getting candy at a house, she heard a man say, "Hey, don't give them candy."

"I turn around and my stomach drops because I see these two ignorant kids in blackface right in front of me," she said.

Esperanza Menendez, who is of Hispanic descent, confronted the boys and cursed at them, telling them that the costume was messed up and that it was not funny. A chorus of, "It ain't racist," can be heard in the dark video.

"Thank you," one of the trick-or-treaters appears to say on camera.

The teen sent the video to her father, who was home handing out candy, and he immediately called her to make sure she was OK. The girls came home afterwards.

"It kind of ruined the night for everybody," Rafael Menendez said. "My 10-year-old was a little confused and we had to talk to her. She was a little scared. We aren't plastered to the news, but we want to make sure they are aware of it."

Pennsylvania State Police at Fogelsville cover the township and said no reports had been filed regarding the costumes or any confrontations about them.

Township commissioners could not be reached immediately for comment late Thursday afternoon.

Esperanza Menendez, who attends Lehigh Valley Charter High School for the Arts in Bethlehem, did not recognize the boys.

After managing warehouses in the Lehigh Valley for 20 years, Rafael Menendez said he has encountered both overt racism and ignorance, but that things have changed lately.

"I've always made sure I carry myself a certain way and I tell my daughters the way you address people is the way they treat you," he said. "It has never been that out-in-your-face. It's always been more indirect."

He was struck by how young the boys appeared and how they seemed to think it was funny.

"To me as a parent, these parents are raising these kids like this," he said.

Esperanza Menendez said she didn't allow herself to be intimidated by the boys.

"I feel like in today's day you can't show fear like that to people who think that stuff is okay," she said. "You need to let them know what's up or they're going to keep walking thinking they're superior and they can just do anything."

Sara K. Satullo may be reached at ssatullo@lehighvalleylive.com. Follow her on Twitter @sarasatullo and Facebook. Find lehighvalleylive.com on Facebook.