Halloween is not a pagan Holiday. Samhain is a Celtic (pagan) holiday, and Halloween incorporates some of those traditions (as Easter and especially Christmas incorporate non-Christian traditions), but Halloween, or All Hallow's Eve, is the eve of All Saint's Day, a Christian holiday since the 700s. Halloween was brought to the US by Christians, not pagans, and is still official recognized by the Catholic Church, the largest religion (not just Christian denomination) in the world, with about 1 billion followers. It's a Christian holiday, even if it's not universally recognized by all Christians. I doubt anyone would argue the various Saint's feast days aren't Christian even if they're rarely celebrated anymore.
For that matter, calling things (religions, holiday, etc) "pagan" really bugs me...I never heard that until I moved to NC. When people call things pagan in the US, they usually really mean Celtic and English/Scottish/Irish traditions. They exaggerate the dichotomy of Christian vs Pagan; that "rivalry" concept doesn't exist for everyone within the US because not all of us share that history. Not everyone in the US has that Brittish heritage (it's a very small island after all), not all of the original colonists even, even if the colonies were controlled by Britain.
Likewise, 100 years ago, I would not have been considered white, even though by today's standards, I don't think there's a person in the US who would even consider I'm anything but white. So what it means to be "white" is just as complex as what it means to be "Asian" or any other race, so please, fellow white people, don't make assumptions about me just because you think I look like you. Back in NY, many people can tell my heritage immidiately and can be just as biased based on that as on race, so it's really all just silly perceptions anyway.
Actually, 100 years ago is when my ancestors first came to the US. That means I'm not a "Yankee" despite what some Southerners insist on calling me. I'm not from New England (NYC is not New England), not a WASP, have no family connection to the Revolutionary War or Civil War, and I don't play baseball, nor am I a candle. So if you simply must be predjudiced towards Yankees, don't take it out on me because I'm not one, and if you're still mad about the Civil War, well, again, don't take that out on me just because my Great-Grandparents all settled in New York.
And for the record, "Northerners" don't think of themselves as such. We identify by city, borough or county or immediate community, state, region (as in New England or Mid-Atlantic or Tri-State area), ethinic group, cultural heritage, political position, generation since immigration (like, I'm a 3rd Generation American by birth), immigration status, religious group, language...lots and lots of things, but almost never "Northerner". See the 2 above paragraphs; many of us have no connection to the Civil War, where that division arose. So don't call me that and don't judge people who's history you know nothing about.
Actually, you shouldn't judge people who do have ancestry from the Civil War either. Whether they were right or wrong, don't take out your hatred of long dead people on their decendants. That's not very nice or fair and isn't going to solve anything or make those living people think any better of you.
And as per the last two paragraphs, people from other parts of the US don't hate Southerners or think any less of them than they do of any of our other fellow Americans. At least, not until they insist on calling us things we're not or hating us for things out of our control. Until that point, we don't grow up with those perceptions of the world, so we can't judge people for those things be cause we don't think of the world and people in it that way.
Everyone has their own cultural biases; the categories we divide up the world into and make judgements on are all different. Don't think your perceptions of reality are universal, don't think everyone eats your foods, or sees religion and spirituality the same way, or has the same biases and preferences, or that there's only one right way to see things and judge others for that (or if there is only one correct "true" way to see things, don't assume you're the one who must be correct; use that for making decision in your own life, not for judging others). If you do, you just end up creating a self-fulfilling prophecy: if you're a jerk to someone "preemptively" because of your expectations of where they're from or how you categorize them, they're probably just going to respond by being a jerk back. That's just how most people are if you don't give them a chance and some initial level of respect and decency.
I'm sad that I even need to say any of this, but I've encountered it all to often since 1997 and I want to finally get it off my chest.
