There are stories circulating around that many young people from poor black neighborhoods are brought to wealthier white neighborhoods so they can trick-or-treat on Halloween. Has anyone witnessed this alleged phenomenon?
Witnessed it? I did it.
Every year when Halloween came around we’d visit our neighbors, then we’d beg our parents until they took us to the nicer part of town. If we stuck in our own area all we’d get were those nasty peanut butter things in the black and orange wrappers, and maybe a few starlight mints if we were lucky.
My neighborhood is a rather ritzy one (although my house is a dump in comparison with the mansion across the street). Mostly old white folks live here; there are only three children on the entire block, none of whom are African-American. Last year at Halloween we had several groups of black kids trick-or-treating. They were accompanied by an adult. The kids were cute and polite, and I was glad to give them treats.
I don’t care whether the trick-or-treaters come from my area of town or not. My feeling about trick-or-treaters is that if they are polite little kids, they get lots of candy.
Sure, its been happening for years. We live within a mile of a “poorer” neighborhood and get far more kids than live there - many of whom are carpooled into the neighborhood.
Are they all black - certainly not - and I’d be hard pressed to tell since my neighborhood is ethnically diverse which kids from which race belonged to which neighborhood. Are they all poor - no, some of them come to our neighborhood because the houses are relatively close together, some because they are trick or treating with friends.
We do it.
We live in a rather modest (okay, very modest) neighborhood with our share of blacks, but also Mexicans, Eastern Europeans, Indians, Pakistani, Assyrians, Africans and pretty much anyone else you can think of. Lots of them don’t grok trick-or-treating, or choose not to participate.
So we get dressed up (adults as well as kids) and go up into Evanston, our old neighborhood, where there are two or three blocks which throw a hell of a great Halloween. I’m talking “there’s the news van again!” cool Halloween shindigs. They get to see my cuties all dressed up, and we get to practice being polite and getting candy for it.
I’ve never had anyone ask to see proof-of-residence when they open the door. I figure as long as we’re in costume and being part of the festivities instead of showing up in sweats and mooching, we’re all good.
I don’t know about race, but we did it. We lived in an area with maybe five houses, so we had to drive to a more established neighborhood so the kidlets could get their goodies (and Mommy too. I had to make sure the chocolates are okay. :D)
My best trick-or-treating ever (actually NOT in the ritzy neighborhood): two beers and a glass of wine. hiccup Thank goodness we were walking! (And that there were other Designated Parents with us!) 
That happened a lot in my old neighborhood. Not that we were affluent or anything, but there was a bit more yuppie money than in surrounding areas. We were glad to welcome the kids.
What are these ‘stories’?
I used to go neighborhood hopping back when too and I’m not black but we did live in the poorer section of town.
Now that I’m an adult who loves halloween and dresses up, I made a really kick ass Green Lantern costume, to hand out candy no kids come to my place. 
I live in an apartment complex so I don’t really blame the kids I know I would rather go walking around a neighborhood of houses. So this year I’m going over to my parents house to hand out candy and I’ll be in my Green Lantern costume again because damnit I need 5 year olds to see my awesome costume and thus validate my existance.
It happens where I live, but the kids seem to be mostly Hispanic, rather than black. I’ve seen people buying whole shopping carts full of candy with the expectation that it will all be gone by the end of the evening.
My in-laws live in an affluent neighborhood in Milwaukee. Every Halloween they bitch and moan about the black kids who come in from the inner city.
Some of the kids are polite, some aren’t. But the same can be said about the rich kids in their own neighborhood. They complain about how some of the kids don’t dress up, but…not everyone can afford an elaborate costume. My in-laws have never been the most racially tolerant people.
This has come up before. I never went trick or treating in the neighborhood I grew up in as a kid. None of the kids that lived there did.
I grew up in a very rural area. Farms, houses set far apart, on a road that was one of the main connectors between towns with no shoulder, no sidewalks etc. Trick or treating there just wasn’t really an option. So we’d get dressed up, get in the car, and drive to my aunt’s house in East Brunswick to go trick or treating in her neighborhood, which was a typical suburban neighborhood. It had nothing to do with our being poor (we weren’t), just logistics. It was safer, and we’d be able to be out longer, be around other kids dressed up, and go to more houses to show off our awesome costumes.
I fear that they include the word “uppity.”
Apparently it is true(for obvious reasons), and I’ve got no problem with it.
Do you?
We live in a well-to-do suburb which is really only a 10 minute drive from the largest city in our state, so yes, we do get imports, sometimes even with their caseworker in tow. Our house, in particular, gets a lot of trick or treaters because we do it up right. In fact, one little girl dubbed it the 'pooky house.
Our city sets an official trick-or-treat, usually the Sunday afternoon before Halloween from 2 to 4 p.m. Everybody knows it’s lame to trick-or-treat in broad daylight, except for toddlers.
My neighborhood association disregards the city’s trick-or-treat and has its own, on Halloween, the way Satan intended it, after dark. My neighborhood is not ethnically diverse. If black children show up at my door, I know they are not my neighbors; however, they may be school friends or house guests of my neighbors, and so they are welcome. I’m not going to question them. However, if my trick-or-treat demographics suddenly go from 2% black to 15% black, something’s up.
If I saw a van deposit a bunch of children – of any race – on my street corner, I would be annoyed. I buy candy based on my estimate of the number of children on the six streets in my neighborhood. I estimate generously, but I don’t plan to provide for imports.
My experience with trick-or-treating exactly parallels ** psycat90’s**. You pretty much can’t trick-or-treat in rural areas, so all the kids go into town. Everyone expects it.
I’ve never seen this, but I really hope they do! I’ve spent six years watching my husband be disappointed at the lack of trick-or-treaters in our apartment in the city, and now that we’ve moved to a nice suburb with sidewalks, kids and decent house density, he’ll give up if we don’t see a good turnout this Halloween. As long as he gets to decorate the house and hand out candy, I could just about care where the kiddies come from.
Ivylad loves it too. Back when he was delivering pizza he dressed up in this frightful demon mask and scared the bejesus out of a little girl who answered the door. He felt so bad, but the mom screamed, laughed, tipped him, then went to go comfort her daughter.