A serious post...

...on the impact of integrated trick-or-treating.

Trick or Treating. I love it. I loved it as a kid running the streets stuffing as much candy into a pillow-case as possible. And I loved it last night as we filled the pillow-cases of the more than 150 Darth-Vaders, pumpkins, ghosts, cow-boys, and witch-fairies.

Why so many? First, we live in a safe, popular upper-middle class neighborhood with many young families and kids. This keeps it fun. Second, because it is safe and popular, many volunteer and church groups, bus people from lower-income more dangerous parts of town into our neighborhood so that their kids could also play, run, laugh, and trick-or-treat, and do it safely. This helps keep it diverse, though a blink of diversity it may be.

During the moment, it was fantastic. If nothing more, it gives me an excuse to spend more time tossing snickers bars like footballs into waiting pillow-cases and bags of even more people.

After it was over, I was bothered by the deeper impact this may have on the kids. To me, all the ghost, goblins, whatever, were a treat: kids doing what kids do best-having fun. However, having spent the last 4 weeks reading to a 6th grader on Friday, I've quickly learned kids today are way smarter than many of us give them credit for. So, to them, I fear I was a upper-middle class, reasonably successful, young professional -- all things they have the potential to be -- but also white -- something many of them can't be.

What impact does taking African-American child from his or her neighborhood to a neighborhood of predominately white successful people in order to trick-or-treat have? What message does this convey about their fellow black neighbors? What message does this convey to them about their own blackness? What does it tell them about my whiteness? What does it tell the kids who live in our neighborhood about themselves? Will the low income kids fall into the self-defeating cycle and at best maintain status-quo while the kids on our street move up? With everything else, is this even an issue that deserves focus?

For God's sake, it's just trick-or treating, right? Well, maybe. But I think it may have deeper impact on the self-image of the upcoming generation. Obviously the answer isn't stop bringing outsiders in to our neighborhood for trick-or-treating. Nor do I think it a good idea to expose well-off children to the dangers associated with some low-income neighbors on Halloween night. Perhaps the answer is in better education. Perhaps it's in more integration. Perhaps it's yet another on-line political movement or facebook page.

I don't know the answer. I do know that after last night, tossing out candy is much more than just tossing footballs.