Addressing Autumnal Amnesia
If you’re like me, autumn is your favorite season. The chill in the air lends a crisp quality to everything you touch. The increased cloud cover and shifting hue of the flora casts an earth-toned shadow over our world. The weather forces us close as we bundle up, hunker down, and take stock of what the year has presented us with. I find that I breath deeper, relax more readily, and observe more in the rallentando that is the autumn.
Autumn also seems to be a time of forgetting. Maybe it is the relaxed pace or simply a result of being near the end of the year and a limited span of memory. Every fall and into winter, the same points of contention rear their heads. I’d like to preemptively address a few of these concerns. I don’t expect that bringing them up here will prevent them from ruining my favorite season. I know these issues are coming though, so I want to say my piece and get out of the way.
This first issue doesn’t get brought up as much anymore, but occasionally someone will still offer “it’s getting colder, so much for climate change.” This is an oversimplification of the climate crisis, a misunderstanding of the science, and I’d guess, willfully on both accounts.
The science behind the climate crisis doesn’t say it will never get cold again. The predictions are more extreme and chaotic weather patterns. Because of the unbalanced global climate, we will see more extreme and more frequent weather events. We will have more frequent blizzards and ice storms as well as extreme heat. A drop in temperature means climate change is a hoax, the same way that nighttime means we’ll never see the sun again.
Something I wasn’t planning on addressing, but thanks to a teacher in Oregon it’s back: blackface. Don’t do it. It’s that simple. Just don’t. I know it’s tempting to go as Morgan Freeman for Halloween, but we’ll get it with a costume and good vocal impression.
It’s less that blackface is offensive in and of itself, (though yes, that too) and more that it was abused in the past and specifically used to deride former slaves and perpetuate negative stereotypes. If you want specifics, there are plenty of videos online that can explain it to you. Trust me though, just don’t.
I don’t have much to say about Black Friday besides the thought of being around that many people makes me ill. Corporate America annually exploits our animalistic, competitive, and capitalistic urges and we go along with it. Every year, the next day there is this hungover-type haze as the news reports on the property damage, bodily injury, and general ugliness that we’ve been duped into celebrating.
The last item on this list of autumnal amnesia is saying “Merry Christmas”. The right to religious expression means you are allowed to say, “Merry Christmas”. Contrary to popular belief, that’s not under attack. Your ability to express your religion though, is not a mandate that I do the same. Your right to say, “Merry Christmas,” is the same right I have to say, “Happy Holidays,” “Happy Saturnalia,” or nothing at all.
As it turns out there are multiple holidays of multiple faiths with varying degrees of importance around the same time of year. “Happy Holidays” is a safe, neutral option. But, and this is the important point, you can say whatever you want. So can I. Considering Christmas only happens when it does to piggyback off of previously established holidays of other faiths, conflation of the holidays was always the point.
