Poor Halloween!

I think we're trying really hard to not see how a costume parade causes a lot more strain on families with difficulty making ends meet than on families where money is no object. Depends on the makeup of the community.

Why does this have to be a ridiculous decision? Why does it have to be interpreted as "caving" to complainers? Why, of all the ludicrous places to take this, do we recast this as "opposed to *diversity*"? "Silent majority"? How do oppose Trump and the GOP and yet buy into every last one of their trash talking points? And while we're painting this whole thing as a galling defeat in the imagined Culture War(TM), how can we still circle back to "hey, this isn't about stoking controversy"?

It /might/ be a silly decision, I don't know. Possibly the school's "clientele" has a very different makeup than what you're used to. In any case, aren't they still more or less still doing Halloween anyway? Just without the costumes. It all seems well within the range of ways some school systems might go about things. Notice that nobody has made the suggestion that having a costume party is some universal wrong.

 
I will tell you this, having taught in about every type of school you can teach in, the schools with a lower economic status had more kids dressing up and in better/cooler costumes than did the schools I taught at that were well off.  It wasn't even close.  

And I have taught in places that a lot of you would not want to drive by even on a Sunday morning at 9am.

 
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zoogs said:
Maybe don't insist on celebrating it then.

You're completely right that the US should get credit for being one of the few that tries to right our wrongs. Reflection about what we do and don't memorialize is a part of that. 
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Who insists on celebrating Columbus day? All I've ever hear people do is make fun of it, because the story behind it is utterly false.

 
Landlord said:
You're taking the idea of apology and assuming that it has to do with blame or guilt. That doesn't have to be the case. If a friend of mine tells me they have cancer, I still say, "I'm so sorry", even though I know I didn't give them cancer.

What we can do, is apologize for the fact that that did happen, and that "we" benefit from it happening, even today, and a lot of native people, even today, are affected by that history. Not because it's our fault, but because it's tragic and awful.

We can also make sure not to celebrate those kinds of things and those kinds of people as society continues to grow and advance. It's too simple to either say Christopher Columbus is a Skeletor-esque evil bad guy, the same way it's too simple to say, "Well, that's just how it was back then." People are complex, to be sure, but reality is that the underlying motivations behind his travels/conquering/genocide were acquiring riches and getting human slaves. 
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Do you know many Native Americans? I live within a 20 minute drive of the Oklahoma border, and know plenty (have family that have married in too). It's really an incredibly interesting culture, but a lot of their problems are self-inflicted..... More of them than not are perfectly comfortable taking that free government money/housing/insurance and calling it a good life. There is not a lot of motivation on those reservations, or at least the locations that I've been around/heard about from family around them. 

 
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B.B. Hemingway said:
Who insists on celebrating Columbus day? All I've ever hear people do is make fun of it, because the story behind it is utterly false.
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We do; it's still an observed holiday with a high profile and at least in some cases, cause for a day off. Precisely because of this, there exists the blowback which points out that, as you say, the story behind it is false.  

It sounds like your position on this is actually the same as mine. But there are plenty who will look at this criticism and throw their hands up in exasperation, as if it were overwrought or unfair or 'can't we cling to our national fiction in peace, regardless of at whose expense...' This is what I've been arguing against,

Anyway, back to Halloween. The kids are going to have fun, so r-e-l-a-x.

 
zoogs said:
We do; it's still an observed holiday with a high profile and at least in some cases, cause for a day off. Precisely because of this, there exists the blowback which points out that, as you say, the story behind it is false.  

It sounds like your position on this is actually the same as mine. But there are plenty who will look at this criticism and throw their hands up in exasperation, as if it were overwrought or unfair or 'can't we cling to our national fiction in peace, regardless of at whose expense...' This is what I've been arguing against,

Anyway, back to Halloween. The kids are going to have fun, so r-e-l-a-x.
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Back to Halloween? I've watched "It's the great pumpkin, Charlie Brown" 4x in a row this evening.... I'm living it! 

 
zoogs said:
I think we're trying really hard to not see how a costume parade causes a lot more strain on families with difficulty making ends meet than on families where money is no object. Depends on the makeup of the community.

Why does this have to be a ridiculous decision? Why does it have to be interpreted as "caving" to complainers? Why, of all the ludicrous places to take this, do we recast this as "opposed to *diversity*"? "Silent majority"? How do oppose Trump and the GOP and yet buy into every last one of their trash talking points? And while we're painting this whole thing as a galling defeat in the imagined Culture War(TM), how can we still circle back to "hey, this isn't about stoking controversy"?

It /might/ be a silly decision, I don't know. Possibly the school's "clientele" has a very different makeup than what you're used to. In any case, aren't they still more or less still doing Halloween anyway? Just without the costumes. It all seems well within the range of ways some school systems might go about things. Notice that nobody has made the suggestion that having a costume party is some universal wrong.
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Maybe I am being a little insensitive to poor folk on this but I don’t feel like that is the issue at all. I don’t recall spending much money, if any at all most years, for the kids Halloween costumes. Other than a few instances we just threw some stuff together that we already had. Quite a few times my wife would make something with cardboard, construction paper and markers. My son was a box of popcorn the one time I am thinking of and it didn’t require purchasing anything. We still have that one in the basement.

Anyway, it’s not my belief that money is causing this issue. Maybe I’m privileged and/or naive but it’s been my experience that the extreme few who were opposed to the Halloween party based their opposition on religious grounds. Like I said earlier, the few I’ve known were pretty extreme evangelical types that didn’t like the satanic/devil side of the holiday.

Maybe I mischaracterized this as caving to complainers but that is what I really feel it is. I called it the silent majority because that is what my experience tells me this is. The squeaky wheel gets the grease. As far as the school not really catering to all students, but rather just the complainers, that too has been my experience. They have this grand mission statement of being all inclusive (which is usually impossible btw) but they deny the parade/party to what I imagine is the vast majority of students and parents who it doesn’t bother, to placate the few that didn’t want it. They claim it disrupts their normal activities...no sh#t, it’s a party, a parade, it’s not supposed to be like every other boring day. I know that is exactly how schools work. We don’t have to drag Trump or some larger conspiracy into this. IMO it is an instance of what I have claimed. It’s just my opinion. I’m not demanding anyone agrees with it but I’m really not going to see it any other way. And you’re right, this has probably generated more discussion than it’s worth. It sure has caused some to extrapolate it to larger issues. Not everything has to have something to do with the dipsh#t inhabiting the WH.

 
Eh. I grew up (relatively?) poor and buying Halloween costumes was definitely something of a burden. I think I only ever had two different ones, and none of them were flashy. I was happy with it, but I can definitely appreciate the struggles for a parent this time of year. We weren't opposed to Halloween, to be clear, so don't feel threatened by this please. Actually, I really liked Halloween. But having a costume party or not at school, in addition to not really making a difference on my childhood, it seems to me like a fairly normal call where either way should be understood. 

I can't remember if every elementary school I went to (there were maybe three?) actually did costume stuff. 

I don't think I'm the one extrapolating. Actually, I'm arguing against extrapolation. It's the other side that has brought the culture wars angle here, with what looks to me like some pretty ridiculous language along the lines of PC crowd. I mean, "silent majority" is the one that really struck me as odd. What does this have to do with the electoral fantasy of the aggrieved? 

Anyway, it’s not my belief that money is causing this issue.
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Isn't that *explicitly* what they said? I dunno. Can't really summon up the interest to investigate, heh. But I'm pretty sure Halloween isn't under attack.

 
zoogs said:
Eh. I grew up (relatively?) poor and buying Halloween costumes was definitely something of a burden. I think I only ever had two different ones, and none of them were flashy. I was happy with it, but I can definitely appreciate the struggles for a parent this time of year. We weren't opposed to Halloween, to be clear, so don't feel threatened by this please. Actually, I really liked Halloween. But having a costume party or not at school, in addition to not really making a difference on my childhood, it seems to me like a fairly normal call where either way should be understood. 

I can't remember if every elementary school I went to (there were maybe three?) actually did costume stuff. 

I don't think I'm the one extrapolating. Actually, I'm arguing against extrapolation. It's the other side that has brought the culture wars angle here, with what looks to me like some pretty ridiculous language along the lines of PC crowd. I mean, "silent majority" is the one that really struck me as odd. What does this have to do with the electoral fantasy of the aggrieved? 

Isn't that *explicitly* what they said? I dunno. Can't really summon up the interest to investigate, heh. But I'm pretty sure Halloween isn't under attack.
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And to be clear, I don’t feel Halloween is under attack. I don’t think this is part of some larger PC movement. I think it’s just another case of a school greasing a few squeaky wheels so that they don’t have to exhibit any backbone. They know the silent majority (sorry, I don’t know any other way to express it) won’t complain and this will placate the ones who did complain.  It’s just an easy way out for them. It probably wouldn’t have piqued my interest at all had that principal not tried to justify it by offering the weak excuses.

BTW, I don’t know what the electoral fantasy of the aggrieved means. I know what each individual word means but used together, I’m coming up  :dunno

 
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B.B. Hemingway said:
Do you know many Native Americans? I live within a 20 minute drive of the Oklahoma border, and know plenty (have family that have married in too). It's really an incredibly interesting culture, but a lot of their problems are self-inflicted..... More of them than not are perfectly comfortable taking that free government money/housing/insurance and calling it a good life. There is not a lot of motivation on those reservations, or at least the locations that I've been around/heard about from family around them. 
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I know a handful. We also played against a number of reservation schools in high school sports. 

I don't disagree with your assessment, but I'm wondering A) what it has to do with what I said or with Columbus Day, and B) how did it get that way? What's the biggest overriding and original contributing factor?

Think of it like this. Say I'm a prototypical rich, successful business man. A competitor I've done nothing wrong to comes in, illegally trades and schemes their way into getting majority share of my company, boots me out, sues me for all I'm worth and leaves me with nothing. A few years down the road I'm on the street, willingly unemployed, spending my days drunk at the shelter, content to just survive in my meager existence. 

Am I at fault for giving up or not trying to hustle? Sure. Am I taking advantage of society's resources and time? Yeah I suppose so. Should I have ever been put in that position in the first place? No. I suffered at the hands of a terrible wrong that shouldn't have ever happened and wasn't ever rectified.

 
Landlord said:
I know a handful. We also played against a number of reservation schools in high school sports. 

I don't disagree with your assessment, but I'm wondering A) what it has to do with what I said or with Columbus Day, and B) how did it get that way? What's the biggest overriding and original contributing factor?

Think of it like this. Say I'm a prototypical rich, successful business man. A competitor I've done nothing wrong to comes in, illegally trades and schemes their way into getting majority share of my company, boots me out, sues me for all I'm worth and leaves me with nothing. A few years down the road I'm on the street, willingly unemployed, spending my days drunk at the shelter, content to just survive in my meager existence. 

Am I at fault for giving up or not trying to hustle? Sure. Am I taking advantage of society's resources and time? Yeah I suppose so. Should I have ever been put in that position in the first place? No. I suffered at the hands of a terrible wrong that shouldn't have ever happened and wasn't ever rectified.
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I would agree with all of that, actually.... But at some point, a generation needs to break those trends. Doesn't mean it's fair. Doesn't mean it's easy....

 
Some of the res schools are a mess.  From top to bottom.  The joke is when you wash out of administration you end up finishing your career as a principal at a res-school.  Basically, administration can't do a thing there.

 
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