Monday, October 29, 2007

Trick-or-Treating is for white folks

So...researchers must be bored, because they discovered that minorities (read: Blacks) are less likely to go out trick-or-treating than their white counterparts. The reason most cited was safety of neighborhood. Obvious correlations occured along income lines as well: rich people would go out on Halloween, poor people probably won't.

Here's a gem from the poll:


Seventy percent of people in the poll who consider themselves liberals and 67 percent of the moderates questioned said they would hand out treats, compared with 55 percent of conservatives.

Of those adults whose children will not trick-or-treat this year, one-quarter cited safety worries and about one-half said they do not celebrate Halloween.

"It's demonic," said Donna Stitt, 37, a nursing aide from Barto, Pa., with four young children. "People are celebrating the dead. I'm not into that."

And not only don't they like The Gays or feminists, but conservatives are stingy with the candy. Nice. These people don't like free handouts of any kind.

Oh, and isn't she a peach: Ms.-I'm-not-into-that.'-Stitt Let's see what Halloween really means shall we, DONNA?

The modern holiday of Halloween has its origins in the ancient Gaelic festival known as Samhain (pronounced /ˈsˠaunʲ/ from the Old Irish samain). The Festival of Samhain is a celebration of the end of the harvest season in Gaelic culture, and is erroneously regarded as 'The Celtic New Year'.

Traditionally, the festival was a time used by the ancient pagans to take stock of supplies and slaughter livestock for winter stores. The Ancient Gaels believed that on October 31, the boundaries between the worlds of the living and the dead overlapped and the deceased would come back to life and cause havoc such as sickness or damaged crops. The festivals would frequently involve bonfires, where the bones of slaughtered livestock were thrown. Costumes and masks were also worn at the festivals in an attempt to mimic the evil spirits or placate them.

When the Romans occupied Celtic territory, several Roman traditions were also incorporated into the festivals. Feralia, a day celebrated in late October by the Romans for the passing of the dead as well as a festival which celebrated the Roman Goddess Pomona, the goddess of fruit were incorporated into the celebrations. The symbol of Pomona was an apple, which is a proposed origin for the tradition of bobbing for apples on Halloween.


Yeah, there some dead stuff in there, but taking inventory and messing around with livestock seems to be part of it, too. Maybe Donna can't celebrate Halloween because she'll be hanging out with fellow cult members here.

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