From Spooky to Unsafe

A couple of days ago, a friend and I took great pleasure and amusement in reminiscing on favorite family Halloween traditions: both the successful and not so successful costumes, the creative and cool decorations on houses we visited, the delicious (chocolate) and sub-par (not chocolate) candies, the disappointedly short period of time it would take to finish the candy, and so on. As I was running through the streets of Ann Arbor, I got to witness kids in the neighborhoods experiencing similar delights and I was overcome with nostalgia.

However, Halloween is not without its fair share of gloom (in more ways than one). This past Halloween, six people, five of whom were teenagers, were shot in Washington DC. Fortunately none of their injuries were fatal. DC officials report that October is one of the more troublesome months and security is always on high alert on Halloween as well as Halloween weekend. In New York City, cops are ordered to arrest people in “roving bands of 2-3 or more people” in an attempt, though incredibly unlawful, to clear the streets of people.

The signs of the holiday’s dangers are neither disguised nor limited to big cities. As a kid during this time of the year, I remember repeatedly hearing the same lesson in school about staying in a group with an adult while trick-or-treating and carrying a flashlight in the dark. We were not allowed to eat apples (in case there were explosives or had sharp objects in them) or eat the partially opened candy (in case someone put something poisonous inside). In college, though, the safety concerns slightly shifted. As I was leaving my house this past Friday, two women from SAPAC came to my front door distributing safety information, including signs of alcohol poisoning, condoms and lube. Then, right after leaving my house, I ran into a neighbor who warned me that her house had gotten broken into that morning and a laptop was stolen. Two more laptops were stolen during the Nightmare on Elm Street block party.

The essence of Halloween demands reflection on human immortality. The delicious tradition dates to All Souls Day in which poor folk would walk door to door on Hallowmas, receiving food in return for prayers for the dead. The custom of wearing costumes and masks originates in Celtic traditions in which people attempted to mollify or replicate the evil spirits in order to hide from them. Halloween stories are replete with death: Edgar Allen Poe’s tales of horror, the Headless Horseman, ghosts, witches, zombies, vampires, the list goes on. Today the real threat and terror of the Holiday is only ourselves.

It is almost fascinating to consider the astounding ability of humans to transform a holiday from one intended to honor and avoid death, to acquiring candy, to once again avoiding death. What is scariest about Halloween to me is how strongly it reveals the human capacity to manipulate the fun and excitement of both a childhood tradition and a college pastime into a viable and real security threat.

By: Naomi Scheinerman

(Photo by Dawn Perry under a Creative Commons license)