In Wauwatosa, WI there won’t be any Palestinian flags flying in city buildings.
This is true for at least the Christmas season. You see, a memo from a Wisconsin deputy city administrator discouraged employees from putting up “religious decorations” in “red and green colors” for the holidays in public buildings in order to be “inclusive.”
You have to love ill thought out edicts with unintended consequences!
Since Red and Green are used in Christmas Decorations. Or so the theory goes, Christmas is offensive to some people and can’t be celebrated. Red and Green are also used in the Palestinian Flag, Most African Flags, and of course the flag of Italy.
So tell me again, how this is inclusive???
What this deputy city administrator really wanted to say was, “Hey Christians Fuck you and your Christmas Trees, traditions, and decorations,” She just didn’t have the guts to say it out loud or in print.
This was directed at employees decorating their cubicles. With “Open Office” floor plans it’s likely that the cubicles are visible from public areas and are therefore considered public areas.
The last place I worked, we could decorate the hell out of the place for Halloween. But we couldn’t do elaborate decorations for Christmas. It was the same thinking… We had Jews, Muslims, Atheists, and people from every religious persuasion in the building. Christmas decorations could offend those other people so they were muted.
The funniest thing was that the practitioners of Wicca were the happiest folks in the building because everyone went wild over Halloween. That being the only holiday that wasn’t frowned upon. Even the Fourth of July was frowned upon because there were workers from other countries in the building.
I’ll grant you, this is a small thing. But it’s another annoyance, and I think an attempt to wipe Christianity and possibly American values, from America.
I really miss the elaborate decorations in malls at Christmas. When I was a child shopping with my parents, the decorations made the time of year magical. As an adult myself, shopping for family and friends, the decorations made me smile and actually enjoy being trampled, in over crowded Southern California malls.
Over time, those beautiful elaborate decorations became muted, and watered down, the last time I was in a favored mall the decorations seemed “phoned in”. There was no joy in them, and many were obviously shop worn, not having been replaced for many years.
I think this trend is not inclusive at all.
Inclusion would be, “Hi, come on in, join us in our fun and revelry. Let’s brighten up this dark time of year. You don’t have to believe in my religion to participate, you’re welcome all the same. Where are you from? How can I make you feel welcome?”
This “inclusivity” is actually exclusion. It eliminates a situation where respectful questions get asked, and people smile at each other more. A time when people share favorite foods, family recipes, and sweets, enjoying it all together and putting aside differences.
This inverted “Inclusion” spawns nothing but low level resentment and demonstrates that some are apparently MORE included than others. Some are more important because they can’t have any possibility of their feelings being hurt.
Honestly, that’s the birth of resenting “Snowflakes”. If you’re so weak in your beliefs, culture, sexuality, or whatever, that you have to be protected at the expense of everyone else’s method of going about their lives…
You’re going to be disliked. Not because of your beliefs, but because you disrupt and prevent others from pursuing happiness in their way.
It begs the question, why is group X,Y, or Z more important than all the rest of us? How do they rate and why?
I wonder if some people seeking answers to those kind of questions find themselves harboring resentment that blossoms into hatred. In their search for inclusion do these folks join hate groups that they would never have considered had they not been excluded by “Inclusion”.
It’s just a theory. I honestly hope I’m wrong. I do wonder though, if we stripped away all the sophistry and spoke what we really felt and thought without fear, would a majority of us admit we felt excluded from society by the never ending inclusivity movement? It’s just a thought.
Merry Christmas to Wauwatosa, WI.
To anyone working for the city of Wauwatosa, WI who might be proud of their African, Italian, or Palestinian heritage… Y’all will need to put the flags in your cubicles away until after Jan 1st!