Like millions of other people, October is my favorite month. The leaves are turning, the air is crisp and cool and there is a litany of sports on television. And the exclamation point to this month has always been Halloween. Where kids are able to dress as their favorite cartoon character, transvestite or blood-soaked maniac and get all sugared up on Milk Duds.
The Halloween season has even started to eclipse Christmas in terms of pageantry, holiday events and lead time when drugstores start filling the aisles with Chinese made decorations. But it seems that these days the Halloween season is getting scarier for the wrong reasons. No, I'm not talking about Starr Jones dressed as Catwoman. I'm talking about cultural homogenization also known as "living in offensive-free America".
School districts all over the country are replacing Halloween parades and festivals with "Fall Festivals"- that just happen to coincide with Halloween, and where the kids dress up in costumes. The concern is that the holiday has too much of a religious connection as it is technically celebrated as the eve of All Saints Day. So every year, on October 31st, we'll dress our kids in costumes and ship them off to school to celebrate...fall. And this will make it all better, right? Everyone believes in fall, right? Well, maybe not the Mayans.
I can't say I didn't see this coming. Rarely in corporate America do you see office Christmas Parties. They are now Holiday Parties so that we are inclusive of Christmas, Hanukkah and Kwanzaa. This approach is perfectly reasonable as you throw in Thanksgiving, Ramadan, New Years, Boxing Day, Veteran's Day, National Clean Out Your Fridge Day(Nov. 14th), etc., this is truly the holiday season. "Merry Christmas" has been replaced with Happy Holidays when you're not certain of someones religious affiliation. Perfectly fine and a good practice.
Happy Holidays works for everyone, right? Maybe not. Apparently not everyone celebrates a holiday in November and December so some "forward thinking" companies have replaced "Holiday" parties with "Winter" parties. Because, God forbid you offend someone by celebrating something that you believe in. Crap, I just said "God". Sorry, athiests. Crap, I just said "crap". Sorry easily offended people who think that's foul language. And I don't mean "easily offended" in an offensive way.
Can you see the slippery slope of removing our cultures from our culture? With six billion people in the world, there will always be someone who is offended by something. I'm pretty sure if you looked hard enough, you would find a contingent of Americans who are offended by Craisins or Velcro.
So now we have a Winter Party and greet each other with "Happy Winter"? What about our friends from the southern hemisphere? December is summer in Sydney. Scratch winter party as it might offend Australians. How about a December party? "Happy December?" Well, that's great if you follow the Gregorian calendar. There are a host of other calendars still in existence from Chinese to Jewish to Mayan. Can't offend any anti-Gregorians.
And for that matter, can we say "Happy" anything without fear of upsetting manic depressives? So December is rapidly approaching and we can't agree on a non-offensive way to wish someone well during a mutually agreed upon representation of the position of the earth in our orbit around the sun. Maybe that's it. Earth travels roughly 580 million miles around the sun every year, so every "December"- if you believe in December- we celebrate mile marker 540m? "Happy 540". Wait, scratch "happy". How about we just nod with no expression that could be interpreted as offensive and simply say, "540". I can see the conversations now.
--"540"
-"540 to you to, my friend. Are you planning to partake in the competition-less and subdued 540 activities later today after our daily back shavings?"
--"Perhaps. After I pick up my average achievement award and visit my speech therapist. My southern accent is acting up again."
-"Sorry to hear that. Well. Have a day, 18950521052"
-- "You too, 18950596332"
More to come of this topic. In the mean time, "485", friends.
Posts
No comments:
Post a Comment