BS: Hate Crime?

Subject: BS: Hate Crime?
From: SINSULL
Date: 29 Oct 08 - 08:52 AM

My first try went walkies...

Some numbnuts, as part of his Halloween display, has Sarah Palin hanging from the peak of his house with McCain climbing out of a flaming chimney. He refuses to take it down - free speech. The FBI has investigated and does not think him a threat.
Is this not a hate crime? If Obama were hanging from his roof, ala Strange Fruit, he would be in jail.

Subject: RE: BS: Hate Crime?
From: SINSULL
Date: 29 Oct 08 - 08:54 AM

Secret Service, not FBI.

Subject: RE: BS: Hate Crime?
From: Manitas_at_home
Date: 29 Oct 08 - 08:57 AM

Does this mean Obama wins by default?

Subject: RE: BS: Hate Crime?
From: Paul Burke
Date: 29 Oct 08 - 09:18 AM

Who do you think he's threatening?

Subject: RE: BS: Hate Crime?
From: GUEST,Justin U
Date: 29 Oct 08 - 10:08 AM

How right you are Sinsull, if this was that guy obama, we would not only see it tv News, it would be the most popular thread on this site as well.

We are not allowed to say anything against them. Bullshit

Subject: RE: BS: Hate Crime?
From: quokka
Date: 29 Oct 08 - 10:14 AM

them? we? who do you mean? you don't speak for us.

Subject: RE: BS: Hate Crime?
From: GUEST,frogprince, in North Carolina
Date: 29 Oct 08 - 10:36 AM

To me, it has nothing to do with chargeable crime, but in a better world it would get somebody ostracised by their whole community. As to Justin's reaction: If there had been a time-honored tradition of lynching conservative white women, and some fool hung an effigy playing off on that as a cute holloween joke, you'd better believe you would see some reactions. One appropriate reaction might be a local newspaper article to the effect of "local scumbag degrades his neighborhood". Believing Palin isn't qualified for the presidency in no way justifies garbage like this.
            Dean, who will vote for Obama

Subject: RE: BS: Hate Crime?
From: katlaughing
Date: 29 Oct 08 - 10:44 AM

It is reprehensible, but I don't think it qualifies as a hate crime. From my work on bias crimes, in WY:

When any one person is assaulted, threatened, or their property damaged because of their membership or perceived membership in a particular group, every member of that group is affected. The crime was committed against, not only that person, but a whole class of people.

In this case, I don't think a whole class of people, i.e. whites, feel threatened.

Subject: RE: BS: Hate Crime?
From: SINSULL
Date: 29 Oct 08 - 10:45 AM

Justin, I too do not know who "them" is. My post is about the hypocrisy of NOT condemning someone who hangs a white middle class woman in effigy while a similar prank done of a black man would have led to protest marches and, I believe, an immediate arrest.

Subject: RE: BS: Hate Crime?
From: Barry Finn
Date: 29 Oct 08 - 10:58 AM

Mary, if only it were for real

We didn't hang middle class white women 60 yrs ago in Maine, the symbolism there doesn't hold a tear but the symbol of hanging a black person or the burning of a cross rather than a MaCain conjurs up a whole different visual.

Barry

Subject: RE: BS: Hate Crime?
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 29 Oct 08 - 11:21 AM

We are not allowed to say anything against them

That post is self contradictory, or it wouldn't be there.

The man's a twit, clearly, and talk about "free speech" doesn't come into it. It's a potential breach of the peace. Local Democrats ought to be the first to insist that it be taken down.

But as Barry Finn there said, the symbolism is not the same. And in the case of Obama this kind of thing wouldn't just be a sick historical reference, but an expression of threat that everyone knows hangs over this candidate.

Subject: RE: BS: Hate Crime?
From: Amos
Date: 29 Oct 08 - 11:27 AM

This was in West Hollywood, and the "artist" is a young, earnest, soft-spoken gay man who is not apparently very hateful, otherwise. I think it is is in extremely poor taste, but nothing to start waving our arms about. You may recall that angry crowds actually burned an effigy of Richard Gere in Delhi because he kissed a Bollywood movie starlet in public. Barack was hung in effigy by four students a month ago. The Pope was burned in effigy earlier this year by angry Muslims. When President Tyler vetoed the establishment of a national Bank, he was burned in effigy on the White House lawn.

Ugly dramatization, yes.


A

Subject: RE: BS: Hate Crime?
From: katlaughing
Date: 29 Oct 08 - 11:50 AM

This had the potential for a hate crime of terrible consequences: Click.

What Palin has said at her rallies incites hate crime fever, imo.

I do not say these things to diminish what you have written about, Sins. They noted it on MSNBC two nights ago and denounced it, the same as they have any of the stuff which has come out about Obama.

Subject: RE: BS: Hate Crime?
From: Sawzaw
Date: 29 Oct 08 - 12:12 PM

A person can hang a dummy depicting one race but not another.

One standard for one race and a different standard for another=???

Subject: RE: BS: Hate Crime?
From: Amos
Date: 29 Oct 08 - 12:30 PM

People have different buttons, Sawz, which trigger on different stimuli, based on different histories. While intellectually any effigy hanging of a human being is hateful and despicable as a gesture, there is no history in this country of stringing up white folks because of their race. And no-one gets overwrought about the cattle rustlers, hoss thieves, and captured spies that have been strung up, who happened to be white.

It's not that the writers here are proposing or holding different standards -- it's about the different push button reactions. Surely you should understand that, given your familiarity with the subject of pushbutton thinking.


A

Subject: RE: BS: Hate Crime?
From: Bee
Date: 29 Oct 08 - 12:30 PM

It was reprehensible taste, in fact disgusting, and I expect any sensible person would condemn it. But if you cannot see the difference between hanging a black man in effigy and hanging a white middle class woman in effigy, then you need to reassess your understanding of context.

Subject: RE: BS: Hate Crime?
From: Big Mick
Date: 29 Oct 08 - 12:42 PM

The basic premise is faulty, Mary m'luv. While it surely is in poor taste, the fact, it seems to me, is that it is a statement about Palin and the type of rhetoric she uses. That rhetoric inspires comments like "terrorist" or "kill him". Hence this is a symbolic use of something that, when applied to an opponent of Palin would have a different meaning. In other words, the artist is using a symbol of racial hatred to make a statement on the rhetoric of Palin, and what it inspires as relates to Obama. If the same symbol were used on Obama, it would be hooking into familiar feelings of an entire class of folks for whom it symbolizes the factual terror tactic used on any "uppity nigger" who thought he was going to get ahead. It would be akin to having a display of Joe Lieberman being tossed in an oven. It is an oversimplification to say that they are the same thing.

Poor taste? Yeah, I think so. Hypocritical? Nope.   Takes a bit of thinking to get the statement, beyond the obvious? Yeah, methinks that is the case.

All the best,

Mick

Subject: RE: BS: Hate Crime?
From: SINSULL
Date: 29 Oct 08 - 12:51 PM

I understand all too well, Mick. I am very glad he's not my neighbor.

Subject: RE: BS: Hate Crime?
From: Bee
Date: 29 Oct 08 - 12:56 PM

You said it much better than me, Big Mick.

It is always the problem with 'edgy' conceptual public art that most people are not going to 'get it'. I think of this as a failure on the part of the artist, in that it requires too much convoluted reflection to be clearly understood by the majority and in fact caters to elitism. Public politically motivated art needs to be blunt and easily understood. IMO.

Subject: RE: BS: Hate Crime?
From: Sawzaw
Date: 29 Oct 08 - 01:09 PM

People of one race require different treatment because of "buttons" = different treatment for different races.

This is similar to the Muhammad cartoon that caused 139 Deaths and 823 Injured

Jews can be depicted as murderers all day long but not Muslims.

Subject: RE: BS: Hate Crime?
From: Amos
Date: 29 Oct 08 - 01:30 PM

WHo says so, Sawz? I don't know anyone who doesn't think Muslims caused 9-11, or who thinks of Jews as murderers, so I am not at all sure what you're on about. The exception, of course is exactly the kind of hate literature you linked to, in which feelings of hatred are stirred up between Israelis and their neighbors by depicting the Israelis as murderous. DIfferent regions, different buttons.   And there have been times when they have been, but it has been equalled or exceeded by similar acts on the other side. Both factions have acted stupidly for yers. In Somalia, recently, with the reinstatement of Sharia law, a woman was buried up to her neck and then stoned to death by a crowd, as punishment for having indulged in adultery. But with very few exceptions, a depiction of Ms Palin in a Western cartoon being buried up to her neck in sand would not spark much outrage. It wouldn't push the buttons.


A

Subject: RE: BS: Hate Crime?
From: SINSULL
Date: 29 Oct 08 - 01:40 PM

But if Obama with his head wrapped in a towel was throwing the first stone, it would push buttons, right?


There's the rub...

Subject: RE: BS: Hate Crime?
From: Bee-dubya-ell
Date: 29 Oct 08 - 02:26 PM

I think the fellow could have illustrated his point equally well by doing something to the Palin effigy other than hanging it. Hanging, as a symbol, carries too much baggage to send a clear and unambiguous message. And, face it, it really lacks originality.

Personally, I would have portrayed her being tortured by a power-drill wielding environmentalist accompanied by a "Drill, baby, drill!" caption. Or maybe just being eaten by a polar bear. Or a moose.

Subject: RE: BS: Hate Crime?
From: Bee
Date: 29 Oct 08 - 02:34 PM

"...a depiction of Ms Palin in a Western cartoon being buried up to her neck in sand would not spark much outrage. It wouldn't push the buttons."

I don't know about your example, Amos. I think a lot of women would be rather touchy about that image.

There is no history in the world of white women being regularly lynched for being white women.

There is history of black men being regularly lynched for the crime of being black men.

There is history of women being executed by stoning for adultery and other gender related behaviours - it's Biblical, baby.

Subject: RE: BS: Hate Crime?
From: Barry Finn
Date: 29 Oct 08 - 07:02 PM

The local order of the Royal Moosie paraded through our little town today carrying the dead body of a wolf & a sign saying "we may be next, vote Obama". The next town over the Local wolf pack were eating the carcass of a dead moosie & holding up signs say "Thank You, Sara, we love you".

Barry

Subject: RE: BS: Hate Crime?
From: Ed T
Date: 29 Oct 08 - 08:14 PM

No need to hang "dummy politicians". Give 'em enough time, and plenty of rope, and they'll do it to themselves.

Subject: RE: BS: Hate Crime?
From: Skivee
Date: 29 Oct 08 - 08:22 PM

While hanging effigies of Se. McCain and Gov. Palin might not be not a hate crime in the "classic" sense, it cetainly helps nothing.
The choice to use hateful images in support of ANY candidate in this election is stupid. There has been much too much of this kind of thing going on.
I scorn it from the neo-con right wing hate mongers and I scorn it from this (presumably) left-wing ass.
Wouldn't it be a much better race if we made our choices based on reasoned comparisons of the candidates positions and potentials?
This immature belch of self-expression just detracts from the real issues. Sad. We should be better than this.

Subject: RE: BS: Hate Crime?
From: Donuel
Date: 29 Oct 08 - 08:36 PM

Last year my neighbor had a black man hung in effigy from the telephone pole. (Which is city property) It was not removed for weeks.

This year there is no hanging victim but there is a McCain Palin sign.

Subject: RE: BS: Hate Crime?
From: Ed T
Date: 29 Oct 08 - 08:57 PM

And there was the case of the plastic surgeon who hung himself.

Subject: RE: BS: Hate Crime?
From: Riginslinger
Date: 29 Oct 08 - 09:22 PM

I'll bet he looked a lot different after that!

Subject: RE: BS: Hate Crime?
From: Cluin
Date: 29 Oct 08 - 09:22 PM

You can't legislate good taste.

And you can't ban bad taste.

Subject: RE: BS: Hate Crime?
From: Sawzaw
Date: 29 Oct 08 - 10:08 PM

It is really very simple Amos.

Anytime you say people of one race should be treated a certain way and people of another race should be treated a different way, it creates racial inequality, not racial equality.

The things I linked to were examples of what I said. Does that push your buttons? Do you require special treatment of some kind? Are you somehow empowered to tell me what I can link to and say and think?

Push my buttons. Heap all the abuse you can on me, ask me any question you want. I do not require special treatment.

By the way, in Iran they do it for real all year long, not just for Halloween.

Subject: RE: BS: Hate Crime?
From: SINSULL
Date: 30 Oct 08 - 10:01 AM

The effigy is down mainly because protestors and the media made their lives miserable. It got ugly with obscene and threatening phone calls (also illegal) and the arrival of one the homeowners in effigy also hung. Maybe it was the helicopters that finally changed their minds. Anyway, Palin is gone but McCain still comes out of the flaming chimney.