By Marc Jampole
Another skirmish on the culture wars broke out this week as
right-wing Christians have flooded the social and mainstream media complaining
that the specialty coffee cup into which the part-time, low-paid servers
working for multinational Starbucks pour its overpriced brew in November and
December does not sufficiently represent Christmas. This year’s cup is plain
red with the Starbucks’s logo. In past years, Starbucks has embellished its
holiday cup with icons of contemporary secular Christmas celebration such as
ornaments, carolers and snowflakes.
Evangelicals say the Starbucks’s action is part of a
continuing “War on Christmas.” For about 10 years now, religious right-wingers
and right-wing media such as Fox News have complained whenever big retailers have used “holiday” in their ads
and marketing instead of saying “Christmas.” The motivation of the retailers
seems clear: to entice those who don’t celebrate Christmas to participate in
the potlatch of conspicuous consumption which defines late December in the
United States and most other countries whose population is Christian or has a
Christian background. Jews fell into line decades ago, turning a minor
holiday—Hanukkah—into an occasion for gift-giving, which of course means
gift-buying. But what about Kwanzaa and Chinese New Year? And what do retailers
do about Muslims, Buddhists, Hindi, Jains and the myriad of other religions
practiced by Americans? An ecumenical “holiday”
season certainly has a better chance of attracting sales from all these
non-Christian groups than a “Christmas” season.
But that’s not how the evangelicals see it. To them,
everything that does not directly manifest Christianity in the marketplace in
November and December is a direct attack on Christianity. If they cared so much
about Christianity, however, their concern would not be that the marketplace is
too secular, but rather that the marketplace has taken over Christmas and
slowly drained it of any religious meaning.
The big complaint should be that Starbucks trots out its
special holiday cups as early as the first week of November, the same time that
most retailers install their holiday decorations, which mostly draw from
Christmas traditions. We have two solid months in which we are bombarded almost
24/7 with attempts to sell us goods and services to celebrate the holidays.
Whether “holiday” means Christmas, Hanukkah, Kwanza, Chinese New Year or
whatever, the marketplace and the mass media exhort us to celebrate by buying
stuff. Not by following Christian principles. Not by contemplating what some
will call holy mysteries and others will call myths. Not by helping others. No,
most of the holiday information overload focuses on conspicuous consumption. As
is the American way, we relate to others and the real world on Christmas solely
as purchasers.
If they really cared about Christianity, right-wingers would
protest the commercialization of Christmas. They would advocate that cashiers
and store greeters say “Happy Holidays” or give the normal rest-of-the-year
greeting, because reducing their religious holiday to conspicuous consumption
dishonors the day’s holiness. They would picket stores with Christmas displays,
since those displays are merely exhortations to buy, and not reflections of
devotion to their god.
Muddying the Starbucks cup controversy is the ignorance of
many of the evangelicals, who don’t realize that certain Christmas practices
have nothing to do with religion, and everything to do with social customs,
many of which predate Christianity, such as bringing greenery inside the home
in winter. For example, one prominent evangelical dunce named Joshua Feuerstein
wrote on Facebook, “Do you realize that Starbucks wanted to take Christ and
Christmas off of their brand new cups?” Of course, he was wrong. There never was
a symbol of Christ on the cups, just symbols of secular Christmas.
Those who believe in the War on Christmas do not understand
how ubiquitous and potent the symbols of Christianity are in society during the
last two months of the year. The Starbucks cup is exhibit A. While plain, the
color combination is red and green, traditional Christmas colors. As far as I
know, there are no white and blue cups, which would suggest Hanukkah. No cups
add black to the color palette, which would symbolize Kwanzaa. None of the cups
are red and gold, colors associated with the Chinese New Year.
No, it’s only red and green, the colors of Christmas. Starbucks
may proclaim its dedication to diversity, but its special holiday cup
references only one holiday. Even those commercials that talk about the
“season” exclusively focus on Christmas in the iconography they present—trees,
stockings, Christmas-style decorations.
I’ve yet to see a Menorah or dreidel in a Wal-Mart or Target TV commercial.
One sometimes sees Hanukkah themes in store decorations—a little Jewish star in
a sea of Santas, reindeer, candy canes, ornaments, trees, angels and carolers.
That’s why many Jews and other non-Christians feel that the real war this time
of year is against every other religion. I understand that retailers focus on
Christmas because most Americans are either Christian or of a Christian
background. But that knowledge does little to relieve the oppression and
alienation that many non-Christians feel as the holiday is shoved down their
throats for two solid months.
After making a vague suggestion that people should boycott
Starbucks because it only used color to symbolize Christmas and Christianity on
this year’s special cup, commercial real estate failure and former reality show
host Donald Trump—who, BTW, is running for the Republican nomination for
president—said “If I become president, we're all going to be saying, ‘Merry Christmas’
again. That I can tell you.” Now that’s a declaration of real war, not against
Christmas or Christians, but against basic American values. That a major party
candidate should make such a statement should send a chill down all of our
spines.
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