Happy All Inclusive, Politically Correct Halloween

"A world in which elves exist and magic works offers greater opportunities to digress and explore." -Terry Brooks

When I was a kid, life was full of magic. Santa Claus was a mysterious but benevolent being that was actually able to travel world-wide in less than one night. He brought us toys and really was able to climb down chimneys even when we didn’t have a chimney in our house. Pragmatism was never allowed to get in the way of magic.

But as magical as Christmas was with its bright lights, music and general spirit of good will, nothing said magic like Halloween.

Halloween was the stuff of legends.

Ghosts and goblins came out on Halloween. At school, our classrooms were decorated with cutouts of witches and pumpkins and ghosts. We got to dress up in costumes that we thought made us look heroic or scary. We went door-to-door in our disguises to get treats from our neighbours believing in our hearts that they didn’t recognize us. Always on the edge of where we trick or treated, in the shadows near the bushes were the “for real” ghosts and goblins. It was magical and we reveled in it.

Today is Halloween and it should be full of that same magic, that same fun and mystery that we all experienced as kids but it isn’t. Like so many other things, it has been captured by the politically correct and beaten into a pale imitation of what it once was.

I live in Canada, home of the free, the brave and the ridiculous.

In some schools, children are not allowed to wear costumes even as some retailers and even some banks are encouraging their employees to dress up. In one particular school, the children will be allowed to wear costumes but they must wear costumes that represent some form of caring. Ghosts and goblins and witches are banned. Only costume that are indicative of caring will be allowed. It makes me wonder how the politically correct will deal with a kid who shows up dressed as a hooker.

Another school has banned costumes but is encouraging its students to wear orange and black. It discourages the word Halloween and would like children to consider today “black and orange day”.

There is a small but oh so very sincere movement in the country to move Halloween to Saturday night regardless of the date. (It’s more convenient apparently). Isn’t that sort of like celebrating Christmas when the mood strikes you?

We live in a world gone mad but it isn’t those who protest, terrorize or criminalize our society that are the biggest threat, it’s the politically correct and their ridiculous ideas. They aren’t improving our societies; they are taking the fun and the magic from them.

Who cares if there is a little mystery and spookiness in Halloween? It’s All Hallows Eve, the night when the spirits of the dead come back according to legend. Pumpkins are carved to keep the spirits from our door and to keep us safe. Sure it’s legend and sure we’re civilized now but so what. It’s still magic and what is life without a little magic?

I’ll tell you what it is. It’s politically correct, pigeonholed ideas and it’s boring. It’s as boring as sitting in a human rights tribunal watching them agonize over how to penalize someone for saying something that hurt someone else’s feelings. It’s a boring as listening to a Canadian senator make a complete ass of herself by proposing to change Canada’s symbol from the beaver to the polar bear. It’s a boring as reading a PETA document and even more boring than filling out your income tax form. At least that has an element of danger to it.

We don’t need saving from the world by the politically correct, we need saving from the politically correct who have no magic in their lives.  We need to defend our institutions, our traditions and our language from those who see everything as a threat. Perhaps we should take a page from the current protest movement and Occupy Halloween or better yet, Occupy The Politically Correct.  We’ll camp on their lawns and chant terribly rude phrases until they give up and go away.

Until that time, Happy Halloween or as the politically correct would say: “Happy All Inclusive Black & Orange Celebration Day” Doesn’t have quite the same ring to it, does it?


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