Well, in the end I put up all the Halloween things, except for the fake cobwebs (which I actually found a bag of in the box downstairs). We distributed several hundred candies (and ate a dozen, at least I did).
Early in the evening, J. stopped by. I didn’t even see it was him – I was as usual focusing on the trick-or-treater, not the parents. In this case, the child was barely two, but really tiny and just so beautiful. He – I initially thought it was a girl because of the somewhat long hair, which was luxuriously curly – wore a tiny policeman’s uniform, which struck me as “daring” in some way, for the child was black. Glancing up briefly, I noticed that the parents were white and black, and I still found it a statement on their part to dress their baby as a “Blue Lives” cop. Then the white man spoke, saying, “Hi, Yule,” and I realized it was J. in his civvies, that is, not wearing his usual expensive business suit and tie, but instead dressed all casually, like one of the boys.
J. is very small and fine-limbed, not quite elfin, but definitely not your average meat-and-potatoes bruiser. He introduced the woman next to him as his wife E., and the little boy as their son. E. is equally fine-limbed and small; I thought she might be Somali. She spoke with a slight accent that revealed foreign birth. And she didn’t grin. Americans tend to grin, even at people they don’t know. It’s a cultural tic; I do it, too. But more recent immigrants, unlike I who has been in North America for over five decades, do not, especially if they’re from more reserved cultures anyway. E. struck me as quite reserved, but not cold. Anyway, the two of them produced a really beautiful child.
I also had one group of about four boys ranging in age from young teen down to perhaps seven (probably a little brother taken along for the journey). The spokeskid, the eldest, was dressed as “the government,” that is, as he described it, “a stack of things,” like debt, taxes, and some other mostly negative stuff. Standing behind him, a ghoul with glowing red eyes: that was “Steve Bannon.” A golem-like figure was Paul Manafort or something like that — topical to a “t.” The little guy was something especially “malevolent,” but I honestly can’t remember which person he was supposed to personify. He had on a kind of gas mask (costume/ fake variety, obviously), so his appearance wasn’t related to what he was supposed to represent (say, Jared Kushner).
No, it was all hyper-stylishly politically correct in a jejune sort of way. I was unsure whether to be impressed or revolted by their display because I didn’t know to what extent the spokeskid had thought it up (in which case I would have been impressed) or the parents (in which case, revolted).
Maybe it was 50-50. Maybe we need a diversity visa for Halloween.
“Diversity visa” of course refers to the latest shocker, viz. that the radical Islamist who ran his truck into cyclists and pedestrians in Lower Manhattan yesterday had arrived in the US from Uzbekistan (if iirc) on a “diversity visa,” a program instituted by the Democrats. If that doesn’t help put the nail in the coffin for that party, I’m not sure what will. Oh yes, just the diversity we need: people who violently disagree with everything for which the West stands.
But then you have these kiddies, “diversity” autocrats-in-training. Dressing up as Steve Bannon (and the costume resembled Bannon even less than the Sophia Robot resembles Audrey Hepburn, so, big fail on execution) is super-scary in this world.