I saw this first hand.
Back in 1996, Ron and I moved into a neighborhood being bought up by wealthy people. It was an older neighborhood being taken over by wealthy gays and others of money. Across the main 4 lane street from our neighborhood was a large migrant population of hard working poor brown people.
A group from that sort of wealthy people came to tell us that they did not want to give out candy to “those kids” and that the kids in our neighborohood would be having Halloween candy night a day early and asked we keep our lights off and take down our decorations before the other kids could come the next night.
Ron and I were appalled. We were new to the neighborhood, but we were not willing to do what as asked of us. So we did halloween candy night for both nights. While the first prehalloween night had few kids and they had fancy well bought costumes the next night was the joy.
Yes many more kids came the night of Halloween. They were dressed in hand made costumes. They were very polite and happy. They expressed joy over the treats they were given, unlike the kids from the night before. The kids made of our decorations and had fun. It was a longer night but so much more fun.
Ron and I paid a price for making “those kids” happy. We were excluded from neighborhood events; we no longer were invited to functions we had been invited to before. We were not even spoken to by the people who felt some kids did not deserve a fun night of getting a few candies because of their skin color. We really did not care.
Two years later we moved and bought a different home in just as wealthy an area but one much more accepting of people with different backgrounds and skin colors. Many of our much more wealthy neighbors had those backgrounds and skin colors. They accepted us even as we were in the smallest home and clearly did not have their money. The next halloween the streets were well lighted with decorations and every child was welcomed to the people’s doors. We were happy we moved. We lost a lot of equity in the house we had and moved from so quickly, but gained it in a much better class of neightboros. Hugs
