10/31/2015
We talk about the War On Christmas, caused by hatred for Christianity, and the similar War on Easter. The War On Thanksgiving is caused by hatred of America, although a couple of atheists will also complain that it’s God who is being given Thanks at Thanksgiving.
But there are many different Wars On Halloween.
Christians are not wrong to think that Halloween is the occasion for a lot of paganism and Satanism. To the extent that there is paganism and Satanism in America, it takes off on Halloween. I don’t think that’s a reason not to let your kids collect neighborhood candies, but it’s not as ridiculous as the MSM makes out in stories like The Evangelical War on Halloween, By Phil Zuckerman, Huffington Post, October 20, 2014.
When reporter Daniel Hernandez wrote Day of the Dead: Your New American Holiday, FasterTimes.com, October 31, 2009, he talked about cities "Mexicanizing". When we say that, it’s Hate. Hernandez wrote:
Day of the Dead is increasingly becoming a United States holiday, with people of all backgrounds in Mexicanizing U.S. cities adopting the parties and customs of Mesoamerica’s cousin to Halloween. Just check out the annual scene at Hollywood Forever cemetery in Los Angeles. There are political touchstones to the holiday as well; In El Paso they are observing Día de los Muertos with a vigil for migrants who have died attempting to cross the U.S.-Mexico border.
Right! But as I wrote at the time, in a sense there’s nothing new here — most people don’t seem realize that the Day of the Dead is just All Saints Day and All Souls Day in a slightly different garb. Halloween, the Eve Of All Hallows, is part of the same festival.
Nothing wrong with that, although Americans can’t be blamed for finding the Mexican festival, with its candy skulls and Aztec associations slightly more bizarre than the American Trick Or Treating, the Great Pumpkin and Treehouse of Horror.
By Steve Sailer has written about this, including a note on it in his most recent post — the recent custom of dressing in skimpy costumes on Halloween can be traced to the gay community’s parties in the 70’s in Greenwich Village. (He also wrote about the lesbian Dean of Harvard Business School banning dressing up in class to "head off the potential for sexy pirate costumes".)
It’s problematical for girls, and some of them are reacting to that:
Of course, the illustration for articles like this usually looks like this:
Finally, there’s the Big One:
I covered this in an article called Is There A War On Halloween — Or Just A War On Regular Americans?
The basic principle is that it’s supposed to be wrong ("cultural appropriation") for white Americans to dress as people of color, or in the costumes of foreign lands, or using any non-Christian religious symbol. (Dressing up like naughty nuns doesn’t count — they're considered white Christians, so fair game.) Sensitivities and microaggressions abound.
For example, here is Olympic athlete Bruce ("Call me Caitlyn") Jenner dressed as a lady. That’s fine, but if either a man or a woman wants to dress as Caitlyn Jenner, that’s awful. Hence this article from the new, Politically Correct Forbes: Caitlyn Jenner Costume Is Bestseller At Spirit Halloween Despite Outcry 
[By Clare O'Connor, October 30, 2015].
Wal-Mart, which is the source of that mildly naughty nun costume, is being proactive in censoring anything that might offend: Walmart has a SWAT team for offensive Halloween costumes, by Claire Groden, Fortune, October 30, 2015.
However, last year when the Catholic League’s Bill Donohue called them out on some awful anti-Catholic stuff, they basically blew him off [Walmart’s Catholic Problem, October 30, 2014].
Here’s one from Ranker.com’s 37 of the Most Offensive Costumes You'll See This Halloween. That’s supposed to be offensive to people who actually have anorexia, and SJWs also come down heavily on "fat girl" costumes.
But the main offense is a white person dressing like a non-white person. The classic expression of this is the 2012 Ohio University campaign by minority students — Students Teaching About Racism in Society (STARS) — against playing dress-up.
All of these people are people who've chosen to dress as Americans in America — sweaters, jeans, Dockers, whatever. But they don’t want anybody in America ever to dress like their parents and relatives back home.
Happy Halloween!
James Fulford is a writer and editor for VDARE.com.
Earlier Halloween articles:
This is a content archive of VDARE.com, which Letitia James forced off of the Internet using lawfare.