Halloween might not be everyone’s favorite holiday, which is exactly why it’s racist, according to a Seattle school district.
This year, Benjamin Franklin Day Elementary School announced that its annual Halloween parade would be canceled due to concerns that it would “marginalize students of color who do not celebrate the holiday.” Not everyone celebrates Halloween by dressing up in costumes or trick-or-treating, the school’s “Racial Equity Team” said, and the school doesn’t want to seem noninclusive.
“Historically, the Pumpkin Parade marginalizes students of color who do not celebrate the holiday,” a Seattle Public Schools spokeswoman said in a statement. “Specifically, these students have requested to be isolated on campus while the event took place. There are numerous community and neighborhood events where students and families who wish to can celebrate Halloween.”
As part of the decision to cancel the Halloween parade, school officials also informed parents that students would not be allowed to dress up in costumes to avoid making minority students feel “uncomfortable.”
“In alliance with SPS’s unwavering commitment to students of color, specifically African American males, the staff is committed to supplanting the Pumpkin Parade with more inclusive and educational opportunities during the school day,” the school said.
One would think a holiday that fosters students’ imagination and encourages them to pretend to be anyone or anything they’d like would be considered “inclusive.” Regardless of ethnicity, every child at any age gets to dress up as Spiderman or Cinderella or, as I did in 6th grade, a lamp. How much more inclusive could it be?
However, Seattle school officials’ concerns are not that Halloween itself is racist but that they might be considered racist for celebrating a holiday that not everyone likes.
Is there a single holiday that every person enjoys to the exact same degree? Probably not. Some families don’t celebrate Christmas or Thanksgiving or Halloween for one reason or the other, but the fact is they’re the exception, not the rule. And when you start writing rules for the exceptions, you begin to sound like the officials at Benjamin Day Elementary School: crazy.
