The More Things Change, The More They Stay The Same: Some Fairmount Residents Still Observing “White-Ween”
Fairmount has a dirty little secret, but today, we’re gonna try and use the Internet to throw the hot white spotlight of shame onto a tradition so antithetical to everything we are, that we can hardly believe it still exists: White-Ween. Never heard of it? Consider yourself lucky. It’s a hold-over from Philly’s less-than-enlightened white flight days, when neighborhoods like Fairmount (and, to be fair, Gray’s Ferry and Fishtown and so on) were so consumed by fears of “takeover” by certain minorities that after a while, even the children would feel the heat. And White-Ween was its grossest iteration, captured perfectly by this poster on PhillyBlog.com:
There is indeed a tradition sometimes referred to as “Fairmount Halloween,” in which groups of neighbors who know each other have their kids trick or treat amongst each others’ houses on the Sunday before Halloween. These folks will say that they do it then so they don’t have to deal with the rush and confusion of a weekday Halloween (not sure what the reason is when Halloween falls on a Saturday or Sunday). Cynics will say they do this so they can then turn out the porch lights and not deal with the many out-of-neighborhood (largely African-American) trick-or-treaters who come to the neighborhood on Halloween itself.
[…] We also welcome all comers that night, and I, like Rapscallion, don’t even mind if they aren’t in costume. I mean really, how petty is it to deny someone a simple piece of candy, regardless of how they present themselves? The great majority of the folks we get on Halloween night are friendly and appreciative, and most of the younger kids are dressed in really cute costumes. Heck, when I was a teenager I wouldn’t have worn a costume either.
So enjoy Halloween and don’t let people scare you into cowering inside with your lights off.
We couldn’t have said it better ourselves, friend. Residents of Fairmount, we demand of you: Tear down your racist Halloween wall.
PhillyBlog: First They Came For The Candy Corn But Lo, I Was Not Candy Corn
October 31st, 2006 at 4:37 pm
Phillyblog makes me wish the internets were never invented.
October 31st, 2006 at 5:29 pm
this is 100% true. i recall hearing about it 5 years ago. i lived in west phila and a friend of mine had just moved to fairmont. she had a halloween party that weekend and mentioned that fairmont parents have the sunday halloween thing “so north philly kids won’t steal their kid’s candy or bother them on halloween.” its absoluely insane. from the outside fairmont looks cute and like a nice close community with its community newspaper and communitty parent groups, but the more one is around there the more one realizes that these organizations exist to isolate. it is one of the most uunwelcoming places in the city.
November 1st, 2006 at 5:29 am
my sis just moved out of there to fishtown. she has told me about this for years its so fucked up! but she would turn her lights out on white halloween and by “the big candy bars” for real halloween. people would never believe me when i said this actually happens in philly.
November 1st, 2006 at 12:26 pm
Isn’t it a little bit hypocritical for you to call anyone racist? The reason people like you and your sister move to Fairmount and Fishtown is because of race.