The war on Halloween

VIEWPOINT

By RALPH HARDIN

Evening Times Editor

If you think this current “cancel culture” trend is something new, think again. It’s just that with the Internet and social media, we have newer and faster ways of spreading our righteous indignation.

For ever and ever, there have been widespread movements and pushes to tear down the things that offend us — even when those supposed offenses don’t come with a clearly defined reason for being offensive. I’m not talking about historical efforts to ban slavery or limit immigration or to keep women from voting or things like that… I’m talking about taking something that really isn’t harming anyone and turning it into a movement in order to… well, the motives aren’t always clear.

Take the Prohibition Movement. I get that alcoholism is a real thing and that it has damaged many lives, but drinking seems like one of those “personal responsibility” things rather than pushing for a Constitutional Amendment to try and rid the country of “the demon drink,” but that’s exactly what happened for a dozen or so years until we collectively decided that was a bad idea and passed another amendment to roll that one back.

The same for book banning. You’d think we’d gotten past all

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of that but guess what’s backagain here in 2023. Yes, even today, you can find a list of books that have been banned from libraries across the U.S. because of someone’s agenda. We’re not talking about “The Anarchist’s Cookbook” or “Fifty Shades of Grey” or something scandalous. We’re talking “Harry Potter” or “I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings” or “Tom Sawyer.” In other words, just because you don’t like something doesn’t mean we need a push to get rid of it.

So, I said all of that to say this… I was in my late teens when I first realized there was a serious effort to snuff out Halloween. By then, I was too old for tricks-or-treats, but I still liked doing Halloween stuff every year. But I was in church one October when I heard someone bring up Halloween and how it promoted evil and the Devil and witchcraft and such.

Now, teenage me was like, “Yeah, and?” but that was the first time I remember even thinking there was anything more to Halloween than costumes and candy. But the “Satanic Panic” was a real thing, especially around here once you fast-forward a few years and the whole West Memphis Three and Satanic cult thing had happened.

And I think that’s when it really took off to bash Halloween, at least locally, as all of a sudden, there were no “Halloween” parties. Nope, instead, there were “Harvest” parties and “Fall Festival” gatherings. The local churches were all over this. What is a Harvest Party or a Fall Festi-

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val? Well, it’s always toward the end of October, pretty close to the 31st, and you put on a costume and you collect candy, play games and have fun! Weird, that sounds an awful lot like Halloween. Do you sacrifice a goat or commune with evil spirits or hail Satan? No? Oh, then it’s exactly like Halloween because no one does any of those things on Halloween either.

It really took off, too. Now, these “Not Halloween” parties are everywhere. They’ve even added “trunk or treat” to the activities, where you don’t get together with your terrible, no-good, very bad friends and roam the dangerous neighborhood streets at night and risk getting kidnapped and being sacrificed to Baphomet. Nope, you all go to one centralized location (like, say a church) and folks just give you candy right out of their cars and trucks. You know, taking candy from strangers in vehicles, just like we were told over and over as kids was a perfectly safe and normal thing to do…

Anyway, celebrate (or don’t) however your heart leads you and let others to the same.

Happy Hallowhatever!