Tweet
Yes, the color-aroused yahoos are already off to a nice start in 2010. (WALB):
A doll found hanging off of a building in Plains is causing controversy. Controversial enough to get the United States Secret Service involved.
Witnesses say it was an image of President Barack Obama with a rope around his neck and the display was found hanging in one of the city’s most recognizable sites dedicated to former President Jimmy Carter.
A few people were able to snap pictures of the black doll with the rope hanging off that building right in the center of town before it was taken down.
…Store owners we asked for comment said this shines a bad light on the home of the nations’ 39th president.
And they would rather not say a word, but one did say off camera she hopes whoever did it is caught. “I don’t think it’s right I don’t know if it’s someone horse playing or what,” said Davis.
Yeah, horseplay. News video is below the fold.
7 Comments
The comments on the article are FANTASTICThe comments on the article must be seen to be believed. There’s even someone questioning the immigrant status of the reporter, who’s been in the US since elementary school. From commenter “DraggingCanoe”:
Just WOW.
Sad way to start the year.We are going to have to work hard to put the hate genie back in the bottle after these last ten years or so.
My fear is they have reached their tentacles into the highest levels of power and stopping them may be impossible.
Really race based?I don’t think its entirely racially motivated. My reasoning: Effigies have been used for centuries. The easiest way to display an effigy would be to hang it. I think it is more of a coincidence than anything. However, the history in this country gives some a predetermined outlook. And based on that truly terrible history, I don’t think the method was drastic enough if truly trying to bring attention to a racially motivated cause. I compare it to a terrorist firing a roman candle into a group of people. After a long history of large and impressive explosions, it just doesn’t carry the same punch. I hope this makes a little sense. I’m not trying to stir the pot, I just see this as a slight over reaction, but then again that is in line with the times.
No, it was pure racist.Americans, especially in the deep south, don’t display effigies. The message here is quite clear. This was a symbolic lynching.
I’m a bit disturbed that so many townspeople were unwilling to talk…… on camera. I’d like to dismiss the effigy as just the obnoxious action of a crank. But the people of Plains apparently fear that speaking out might result in violence to them. This suggests that the effigy is more than just a prank.
Then what would be, in your mind?>I don’t think the method was drastic enough if truly trying to bring attention to a racially motivated cause.
If hanging the first black president in effigy from a high place in the deep South, one that needed Secret Service protection earlier than any other candidate ever, one that had racial attacks and doswhistles started against him and his family throughout the campaign into the presidency (often as “jokes”, like the watermelon patch on the WH lawn “joke”), ISN’T drastic enough, then what would be?
Really, sure, the effigy should have been hung from a tree, dismembered, and maybe set on FIRE to be painfully historically accurate. Or maybe beaten beyond recognition. Or maybe just shot up. But the knuckledraggers who did this wanted a big public impact, so they chose a well-known sign instead of a tree. And a fire would just burn out, making the effigy unrecognizable.
That does NOT take away from its racial power, particularly in the US. Especially in the Deep South.
“Srange fruit” indeed…
The power of hate groups bets on this reaction every time…When my (white) aunt first moved up to Pennsyltucky from PHiladelphia with her toddler son, she naturally pulled out photos of her old work friends at a church function. She was hushed and told to put those photos away. When my aunt was very confused, her church frined said, “Put those away, don’t show them around. you know, the Klan is up here.”
Now, PA boasts more hate groups than many states, including southern ones. But my aunt never saw any other signs of an active Klan chapter or any other hate group. The idea of the Klan, though, was enough to change people’s outward behavior and POV about their own communities.