Leave Halloween To The Kids

Is this kind of Ammerican History taught in schools around here?

Liz, respectfully, you're trying to over-reach here. (I now of course await the predictable who will claim tht actually you're being much too mild on this topic.)

Lynchings have not been exactly common practice in America for a long, long time. Even in the "Old West," where westerns make it seem as if they were common, they really weren't. I seriously doubt that most high school students today, especially if "The Ox-Bow Incident" has been removed from the reading curriculum, even have any real idea of what a lynching is. (Yet another cue for frothers here!)

Instead, as this past weekend's box office success of "Saw IV" made clear again, they and many of their fellow Americans know oodles about torture. Enough so that they confuse the sadism of such a movie with Halloween, thus do not blink when a neighbor shows a "hanged man" (which, interestingly, is an image used in the Tarot) as part of his Halloween decorations.

But to go from that unfortunate point as you did above, no, that was not necessary. And to cite all those noose incidents? Well, we all still await proof that any one of them involved a genuine "hate crime," rather than copycatting by mere idiots or even someone doing it to themselves for politicized effect. (3rd cue here!)

Perhaps, too, in this vein, you remember the "National Socialist White People's Party" leader in PA who begged a Times reporter not to "out" him as a Jew some years back? When he was so identified, he killed himself. People seek attention in the weirdest of ways, often by falsely alleging victimization. Or so I have read, at any rate. (Fourth and final cue!)

Liz is shot out of a cannon on this one--

But maybe we shouldn't be surprised. Because let's be honest, there are far too many pieces of American history overlooked by our schools (and parents). Too many. So I'm not surprised.

Teaching racial history is (in many places) limited to slavery, Jim Crow and MLK (with far too much guilt felt by white kids, while black kids end up feeling uncomfortable- I know I was).

Truth is, too many kids- black and white- have no idea of their shared history in this country.

(the Prof steps off his soapbox....)

I'm not at all sure that one could properly be riled up by a Halloween display featuring hanging people (not, I'm assuming, obviously black or obviously white), because it is after all Halloween. Still, it is pretty alarming that an American who is supposedly well-educated has never heard of lynching. And while cathar is right in stating that it is no longer a common occurence, the Tuskegee Institute documented 3446 cases of blacks lynched between the years of 1882 and 1968. That's 45 people a year. That is not an insignificant amount. I think all people should know that this took place, and also that the fact that it is viewed as an outrage is a mark of how far public attitudes have come. Perhaps in the interest of just getting along with others, folks could forego their right to this type of display. Wasn't it Franklin who said that that which one has a right to do is not always the right thing to do, or words to that effect?
Lynching has a nice Irish side to it as well -- it was Lynch of Galway who hanged his own son and gave the world the term. Or so they say._

(Prof re-reads...)

You go Liz!

Also my tone failed to convey my feeling that this is not that big of a deal. So instead of perhaps rolling our eyes and going on about our business, we get up in arms (and call the media).

[This (and cases like it) remind me of David Howard, the DC mayor's aid who used the word 'niggardly' in reference to his administration of a fund.

Howard later said, "Although the word, which is defined as miserly, does not have any racial connotations, I realize that staff members present were offended by the word."]

This one is definitely off the reservation. What Halloween display wouldn't be complete with out one ghost ghoul or other dismembered body hanging by a noose. This is politcal correctness run amok. Get real...

I've seriously had it with these extravagant holiday decorations. What's wrong with a few nicely carved pumpkins on the porch? Oh, sorry, not outlandish enough. At least his display wasn't inflatable.

Great headline, too: "White guy's holiday hanging riles black woman". Don't newspapers have competent editors any more?

Both New Hampshire and Washington still have hanging available for their lovely death penalty innmates. Which may be better than Utah, Oklahoma and Idaho who have the firing squad.

I was going to have a guillotine in my annual lawn display, but I thought I might offend the French people.

I'm certainly not in favor of a noose in any public display, but I don't quite understand why a great number of people are calling this racist and shortsighted. The intent is so obviously not there, so why are so many drawing the connection?

If there were a bunch of murders committed recently by a pagan, would be be outlawing witches this Holloween?

And secondly, it's not as if the noose is limited to the lynching of blacks. The noose was used as the preferred form of capital punishment for hundreds of years. The sight of the noose would instill fear in people long before the 1800's.

I think in some ways this over emphasis of an issue is far more hurtful than the issue itself.

Croiagusanam, I seriously question the "figure" of an average 45 anybodies a year. From my reading of Western (as in the Old..), historians always seem to disparage the very idea that lynchings were common practice. Just a check of the visual record doesn't seem to show nearly even one-tenth so many lynchings, which is odd in these days of photographs. And in 1968? Even one? I'd happily be re-educated here by you, however, even as I wonder how a "lynching" was even defined as such by the Tuskegee Institute. (Perhaps, for example, victims of racial violence in places like SC and Everwood, FL are lumped in, though they may not have been hung from trees? The outrage sometimes lies both in such dire acts and in those would would "redefine" them for their own purposes, after all.)

The use of the firing squad in Utah (and likely Idaho, too), ackme, has more to do with certain doctrines in Mormonism than with an actual defined concept of capital punishment. Blood atonement, etc.

Bring nack the firing squad!. Ah the good old days..

That is the Institute's figure, and I don't know if only hangings are included in that, or burnings, shootings, etc. Perhaps they refer to murders where race of the victim vis a vis the perpetrator played a role. It doesn't seem a wild number to me, given the racial climate in the country during those years, especially in the south, and the virtual certainty among whites of the time that they would never be held accountable by white juries for these acts. 1968 does not seem far-fetched either -- it was only a little while back that that individual was dragged behind a truck.
I agree that there is an element of PC in all of the outrage over Halloween displays, but there is something to be said to listening to the concerns of others and maybe, just sometimes, saying "well OK, if it bothers you, I'll refrain". Not all of the time, of course, and not on matters of principle. But sometimes just because it is the decent thing to do.

Let's try a new perspective on this issue.

If the display were a trio of witches tossing puppies into a boiling cauldron - would it be just another Halloween display - or very bad taste?

Why the recycled topic, Baristas? Slow news day?

Nope -- I thought it was interesting to read what's developed since then. Including NY's anti-noose bill for that matter.

I didn't see any anti-noose bill mentioned.

That's what I meant. Since 10/16, the story has developed further.

http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2007/10/23/national/main3396294.shtml

In response to Croiagusanam:
It's WAY more than a touch of PC..it's WAY overboard. People that are that sensitive should remain indoors.

In response to hrhppg:
You could choose either. I would call it a gross Haloween display. It's not difficult to believe witches would toss a puppy in the cauldron, heck Hansel and Gretel nearly got chucked in..

Liz -- Can you be any more of an asshole?

I hope so, if I'm ticking you off!

OH yeah, I forgot to mention in my first post. Liz, I will have to cling to the thought you were merely looking to stir the pot on a slow posting day. The alternative is that you really believe it which would make you a total idiot IMHO.

There's a full-sized guy in a noose hanging from a tree right here in Montclair, at the corner of Highland Ave and Edgewood Terrace. But it doesn't come off as offensive because the figure in the noose is a skeleton dressed up as a pirate.

Cool how that works, right? Bones are racially neutral to begin with, and then adding the pirate hat and eyepatch and puffy shirt give it the "avast ye hearties" connotation, so when you see it your mind doesn't go to the deep south & jim crow & all that.

contrast that w/ the Times' pic of a fat white lady standing in front of a rubber corpse with black skin, saying "hey, i'm not racist!" These crackers gotta learn some symbology, is all.

When the aliens launch their stealth attack on planet Earth, no one will notice. We'll all be too busy arguing about bullshit.

Gimmee a break Sleepysleek, I saw the pic. You are reaching.....bigtime. It looks like somoe sort of ghoul or vampire type. You have to be searching for trouble to find something there..

That wasn't racist. It was just stupid. Next they'll be banning Christmas Trees because the color green would seem racist to aliens.

Cheese, I'm not the one who's reaching -- to me it's all just crass, garish frou-frou. It doesn't offend me. But i try to understand why it would offend other people. (Judging from the news quotes, many of those offended are African Americans old enough to remember the Civil Rights struggle.) And by way of trying to understand that, I also speculate on why some nooses are offensive and not others. It seems to be largely in the point-of-view of the observer, BUT, if you manipulate the symbols a bit, (Pirates! Avast!) you can manipulate that POV.

Now, the fact that you think anyone bothered by that imagery is "looking for trouble" tells me something a bout your POV, Cheese. You're obviously not an African-American who came up in the civil rights era. You're more likely a right-wing-ish white guy who rarely considers other people's POV.

Sleepysleek, you got the right wing white guy part right(Probably not a big leap). As to the rest, I do consider others POV to a degree. One of the problems with society today (IMHO) is that we over do that. We try not to offend anyone over anything ever regardless of how sensitive they are. Sometimes people need to just "get over it". This is one of those times in my opinion.

So if you can't bring cupcakes to school for your kid's party anymore....do you really think you can lynch a dummy at Halloween?
lol
Life just ain't right sometimes.

LMAO @ whatever..good one..