Merry [Censored]
Last year many retailers learned the hard way that censoring Christmas was a dumb idea. Best Buy, it seems, is not among them. When contacted by Snopes, they replied:
Thank you for sharing your thoughts about including Christmas in our marketing efforts. We recognize that several holidays are celebrated during the months of November and December. Many people exchange gifts in celebration of one or more of these holidays.
In order to be respectful of all our customers (and employees) who celebrate different holidays throughout the season, we are choosing to use “Happy Holidays” as the primary greeting in our holiday campaign.
I say we take Best Buy at their word. Since they think generic holidays are more respectful than actual holidays with any real character, let’s do all our generic holiday shopping at Best Buy, and our Christmas shopping elsewhere.
UPDATE: More venom from … who else?
November 19th, 2006 at 7:54 pm
I also hated it and considered it censorship when, on Super Bowl Sunday last year, so many retailers refused to say “go Steelers” in their ads, and instead just talked in stupid, general terms about how great the “super bowl” was.
What’s the point of celebrating the super bowl if you don’t recognize a team?
November 19th, 2006 at 8:11 pm
Nice try. A better analogy would be if any advertiser were clueless enough to shy away from mentioning the Super Bowl, encouraging its viewers instead to enjoy “Sporting Events,” lest any hockey, basketball or “BASEketball” fans feel left out.
November 19th, 2006 at 8:35 pm
Thereyago Xrlq. :)
November 20th, 2006 at 4:11 pm
XRLQ, your analogy is far weaker because there’s very little practical reason for basketball fans to not be football fans, and vice versa.
Fans of particular teams are far more similar to various religions than are fans of particular sports, because almost all religious believers necessarily want their religion to “win,” just like fans of particular teams.
Basketball fans don’t spend much time agonizing over preferring baseketball to football or vice versa — they can like one or the other or both with almost no internal conflict.
But nice try . . .
November 20th, 2006 at 11:55 pm
You’re the one who brought up the sports analogy, not me. The point is that the Superbowl is not an event for one particular football team, but it is a football event, and if hockey or basketball fans (or worse, baseketball fans) who don’t care for football happen to feel left out, that’s too bad. Pretending that the Superbowl is all about sports in general would be silly, for the same reason that pretending that the Christmas season is all about holidays generally.
But I think I’ve thought of a decent compromise everyone can live with. Let those who plan to shop for Christmas do all of their Christmas shopping at stores that don’t soft-pedal (peddle?) Christmas, and let those who plan on giving away “holiday presents” generically buy those gifts at Best Buy.
November 21st, 2006 at 12:43 am
Hahahaha.
November 21st, 2006 at 4:32 am
Phil, what would you think of a store that used to advertise for a Jewish holidy but then stopped using the name of the holidy because it offended some people? Or a store that used to advertise for a Muslim holidy but then stopped doing it because it offended some people?
Why is it OK for a national chain to cater to people who hate Christians if it’s not OK for them to cater to people who hate Jews or Muslims?
November 21st, 2006 at 8:47 am
Doc, I don’t think Best Buy’s policy is motivated by hatred of Christians. It’s just another example of a bad business decision motivated by political correctness run amok.
November 21st, 2006 at 6:40 pm
I will say this: If I see a Best Buy policy saying “if a customer says ‘merry christmas’ to you, you have to say ‘happy holidays’ back,” then I’d agree that this is censorship. That’s not what this policy is about — it’s about not saying “Merry Christmas” to ABSOLUTELY EVERYONE, when you know that not everyone celebrates christmas.
This is a policy for ad campaigns to the general public. As such, it’s just like Steelers fans getting mad because Best Buy won’t print “Go Steelers!” on their national ads. The fact is, Best Buy wants to reach ALL customers, including fans of the other team.
Christians are getting offended, saying “Hey — just reach ME, or I’m not shopping with you anymore!” That’s the real censorship.
November 21st, 2006 at 9:10 pm
Oh please. If you insist on your Steelers analogy, Christmas isn’t the Super Bowl, it’s a Steelers function that has gotten to be so big that the whole country pays attention to it. Over the years, a few smaller teams have copied it, most others simply ignored it, and now every major store wants to cash in on it. Best Buy does, too, but they refuse to mention the Steelers by name – and you’re mad at Steelers fans for taking their business elsewhere. I’m not a Steelers fan myself, but even I can see what’s wrong with that argument.
November 21st, 2006 at 9:41 pm
Well, if your point is that because Best Buy wants to profit of the commercialization of Christmas, it shouldn’t complain when the christians (who allowed/contributed to turning this into a commercial holiday instead of a religious one in the first place) insist that Best Buy pay homage to the religious element of the holiday or they won’t pay commercial attention to best buy . . . I guess I’ve lost the reason you consider Best Buy’s action is “censorship” but otherwise don’t really disagree.
November 21st, 2006 at 9:58 pm
To simplify the above run-on sentence: My main disagreement with you is your implication that somehow Best Buy is suppressing free speech by refusing to say what christians are trying to force Best Buy to say. I think the opposite in fact is the truth — christians (and you) are trying to suppress free speech by making Best Buy say things to make the christians happy.
Instead of sucking up to the majority (christians) and pretending christians are the only people who exist, Best Buy is odding politely to the majority (christians) and minority (everyone else) alike, saying “happy holidays” to everyone. That does not strike me as censorship. Unless you consider best buy simply a mouthpiece of the christians.
If Christians want to try to force retailers to say “merry christmas — AND YAY JESUS!” and advocate boycotting retailers who won’t do it, fine. They’re jerks to do so, but fine — I’m glad that in America you have the freedom to act like a jerk. But retailers who won’t budge to this pressure don’t deserve to get kicked around with false accusations of censorship.
Going out on a limb to include other beliefs by saying “no, we’re not going to say ‘merry christmas’ to hindus, buddhists and jews etc.,” does not strike me as censorship. It’s just someone saying “no” to the demands of the spoiled majority.
November 22nd, 2006 at 5:50 am
X, I don’t think that the management of Best Buy is motivated by hatred of Christians, but I claim that the only people who would be offended at “Merry Christmas” hate Christians or at least are prejudiced against Christians.
Why else would anyone be offended? I’m not offended when my Jewish or Muslim or Hindu friends offer me greetings related to their religion and they aren’t offended when I offer them a Merry Christmas. Even further, it would be considered very non-PC if I did get offended, but it would be very PC if they got offended. Why is that? The reason is that it is politically correct to be offended at Christianity but not politically correct to be offended at any other religion. Religious discrimination is built into PC.
November 22nd, 2006 at 7:05 am
I think you just explained it yourself – it’s motivated by PC, which requires a certain degree of discrimination against the predominating race/sex/religion/etc. It’s not motivated by hatred of that race/sex/religion/etc., but by a misplaced attempt to be sensitive to the downtrodden.
November 22nd, 2006 at 9:10 am
OK, XRLQ, f you really think Best Buy is trying to avoid offending people, show me how Best Buy is facing less outrage and offense than any of the retailers who have flip-flopped back to pleasing the christians.
Heck, I’d like to see ANYONE who’s said they were “offended” this year by stores using the word “christmas” in their advertising. Then look at how many shrieking protests there are out there at anyone who still WON’T use the word Christmas.
It’s the wal-marts et al, who gave in to the screaming christians last year, that are trying not to offend. If anyone’s trying to control speech, it’s those who are trying to jam the word “christmas” into every retailer’s mouth using threats of economic retaliation.
November 22nd, 2006 at 2:03 pm
With all due respect to everyone’s religious beliefs, Christmas has too much baggage from too many sects and cultures for a proper national holiday.
What we need is a purely American holiday, with pure American antecedents. One which is only as old as America is. Where families get together and celebrate being together or being in America or just America herself. Where the religious component of its origin is only dimly remembered, if at all, and makes no difference. Without conflicts over religious symbols or any religious symbols at all for that matter. Without commercialism.
I wonder when we should have it and what we should call it. Well, whatever. Happy Thanksgiving everyone.
November 27th, 2006 at 1:15 pm
Isn’t that the 4th of July??
November 27th, 2006 at 4:54 pm
Still too commercial (that’s when hardware stores score their biggest sales) and not solemn enough. Too many picnics, fireworks and airshows. We have to think of another. BTW, how was your Thanksgiving?
November 28th, 2006 at 4:58 pm
What happened to many retailers last year? WHat a stupid question — obviously, some lost money? But are there specific cases of boycotts or anything? I don’t remember reading about any backlash here in Canada.