Halloween might be over, but there was one trick this year I just can’t get past.
“Dear Prudence,” an advice blogger on the online magazine Slate, received a letter from a reader who went by the name Halloween for the 99 Percent.
In the letter, 99, as Prudence referred to the reader throughout her response, described how they lived “in one of the wealthiest neighborhoods in the country” and how it bothered them that many of the trick-or-treaters were supposedly clearly not from their ?neighborhood.
Normally, I wouldn’t care about what happens on a blog, but this letter was just too contemptuous and nauseatingly elitist to ignore.
I think perhaps the most shocking comment from Halloween for the 99 Percent was when they said, “Halloween isn’t a social service or a charity in which I have to buy candy for less fortunate children.”
It’s quite hilarious that the celebration of a holiday and a social service are separated by such a fine line that the quality of the children’s costumes or the make of a parent’s car can cross it.
In the end, there is no difference between giving rich kids candy and giving slightly-less-rich kids candy.
Saying there is a difference is like suggesting that, for Christmas, there should be a normal Santa at the mall and then a VIP Santa wearing a suit lacquered in gold for those kids whose parents think mixing the two groups would result in unwanted economic ?conflict.
Further, it’s interesting that anyone would even consider Halloween as some sort of charitable event where the well-off businesspeople and doctors take pity upon the lowly children of blue-collar families and give them a king-sized candy bar.
It’s just such an incongruity that a holiday based on voluntary participation could be construed as a social service, especially since, in the end, the only social service given is in the form of candy bars.
The reasoning for this determination is the best part of the entire letter.
Halloween for the 99 Percent believes they shouldn’t be responsible for giving less fortunate children candy because they “already pay more than enough taxes toward actual social ?services.”
Ah, yes. Here it is. The classic I-pay-taxes-so-I-don’t-have-to-do-something-I-don’t-want-to-do trick and the I-can-hide-my-prejudices-because-the-government-takes-some-money-from-my-paycheck plan.
I’m glad Halloween for the 99 Percent feels justified that they are doing enough for the less fortunate with the tax dollars they have to pay and then never care about them again.
On a brighter note, Prudence delivered a ?surprising response.
In her own words, Prudence tells Halloween for the 99 Percent to stop “being callous and miserly and go to Costco, you cheapskate, and get enough candy to fill the bags of kids who come one day a year to marvel at how the 1 percent live.”
I don’t think I could have put it any better.
allenjo@indiana.edu
