Discussion for article #229250
Maybe 99 Percent but aspiring.
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Could this have been a spoof? I believe that some of the 1% think these thoughts, but I would have assumed they would be too embarrassed to put them in writing.
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I’m having trouble believing this was real. It reads like a parody. But if it is real, omigod…this person is an amazing piece of human dung.
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You’re assuming they have a certain degree of self-awareness. There is little evidence that they do.
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“Could this have been a spoof?”
Possible of course, but over the years I’ve heard substantively the same kind of complaint. It’s usually triggered by kids of color coming to the door. “Ewwwww! And some of them are colored!”
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I say if you can’t pull yourself up by your bootstraps and move into a gated community quit your bitching.
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Not enough miXED_cAse to be ET!one1
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Judging from the Letters to the Editor in our local paper, that kind of sentiment is real, and some people aren’t shy about expressing it.
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How sickening . . . I could sooner understand (well, not really) how the disdain exists for adults who haven’t done well for themselves, but how do people resent kids wanting to share in some Halloween goodies???
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The “Let them eat cake” attitude has worked so well in the past…
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I live a block away from a poor neighborhood in Chicago. Last year, we gave one piece of candy each to 800 people before we ran out before the 8PM village-mandated end of trick-or-treating. The night’s a pain in the butt, sometimes, with some few rude older kids among the throng, but mostly, I just feel crappy to know I live in a country that mostly doesn’t care that millions live in poverty, to the point where Halloween is a way for many to fill their bellies.
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Lack of generosity to children not like their own is but a facet of their lack of compassion for lesser fortunate people in general.
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Haha…you go girl! lol
Wrong holiday, but Scrooge’s sentiment is on point:
“At this festive season of the year, Mr Scrooge, … it is more than usually desirable that we should make some slight provision for the Poor and destitute, who suffer greatly at the present time. Many thousands are in want of common necessaries; hundreds of thousands are in want of common comforts, sir.”
“Are there no prisons?”
“Plenty of prisons…”
“And the Union workhouses.” demanded Scrooge. “Are they still in operation?”
“Both very busy, sir…”
“Those who are badly off must go there.”
“Many can’t go there; and many would rather die.”
“If they would rather die,” said Scrooge, “they had better do it, and decrease the surplus population.”
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“But it just bugs me, because we already pay more than enough taxes toward actual social services,”
No you don’t asshole!
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Emily Joffe’s correspondent should get out of her bubble a bit and look around. The Halloween phenomenon she describes takes place in virtually every community in the country where there is stark economic disparity. I live in a big house in the nicer section of my town and by 6:00 PM on Halloween the streets are teeming with little fairies, monsters, princesses, heros and their parents. They are obviously from somewhere else. So what? We buy a pile of goodies and dish it out until it’s gone. Isn’t that what the festival is all about, (besides getting in good with the pagan gods, of course?)
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You know, it just occurred to me that what we have here is clearly Halloween Fraud.
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Yeah, if we were talking about somebody living in a working class neighborhood, someone who is living on a budget and is buying candy as a nice thing for the local neighborhood kids, who is annoyed about people from outside the neighborhood coming through and grabbing up all the candy I could kind of see where they were coming from.
But even if you are living in one of the more “modest” parts of one of the wealthiest neighborhoods in the entire country you are still making enough money that you have no reason to be bitching about out of neighborhood kids coming through looking for a fun-sized Snicker bar.
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You know, I have lived in quiet neighborhoods that were never visited by Trick or Treaters and in neighborhoods that attracted hundreds of “poor” kids from all over town. I prefer the neighborhoods that attract lots of kids. I have never had a problem with any of them. It is fun to see all the costumes. Rich or poor they are all having a great time.
If “99 Percent” can’t afford candy for one and all who show up, she probably isn’t in the 1%. If she runs out of candy she can always turn out the lights and lock her door.
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