Hang 'em High

We have now come to this. In Connecticut this week, a homeowner was coerced to taking down a Halloween decoration. After a two hour meeting in City Hall, with the mayor and chief of police present, along with several community activists, this homeowner drove home followed by the mayor and the police chief and removed a figure that looked like a bady decomposed Freddy Kruger from the tree outside her home. It seems that "Freddy" was hanging from the tree. A noose was around his neck.
Ever since the Jena case hit the national headlines, the noose issue has been on the front burner all over the country.
In Indianapolis, a sanitation worker was suspended for having a noose in his truck. The driver said it was a Halloween decoration. The truck was festooned with other assorted ghoulish items.
The Connecticut homeowner said that every Halloween she tries to outdo the previous year's ghoulishness. Photos of the house show dark and scary figures, knives sticking out of heads, skulls and other decorations. The assorted public officials arrived at the home, assembled by the tree and watched as the homeowner removed the offending figure. She then took this decoration and sticking a long pole down its back, stuck it in a pot with some sticks and fake flames and announced to the crowd, "how about burning at the stake. Is that okay?" The church clergy assembled responded with "sure, that's ok. I don't have a problem with that."
Well, I do.
Are we, as a community, only going to respond when an outraged leader, or group, threatens us? Sometime during the two hour meeting in City Hall, one of the community activist leaders threatened the homeowner that unless she remove the hanging decoration, he would have picketers outside her home until it comes down.
It's a Halloween decoration. It is not a black man being hanged for being black.
The Department of Justice recently said, "A noose is a powerful symbol of hate and racially-motivated violence, and it can, in certain circumstances, constitute the basis for a prosecution under federal criminal civil rights law." (foxnews.com - Oct. 19, 2007)
Shouldn't we learn how to discern the difference between a holiday decoration and a racial epithet?
Shouldn't we prosecute those who, whether for publicity or 'just because I can," engage in violence against others, either through physical assault or intimidation?
Shouldn't we be mindful that we don't lose track of the forest for the trees? When we begin to saythat any depiction of a rope made to look like a noose is a racial statement, aren't we lessening ourselves as a society, giving in to mass hysteria, or worse, being bullied by those who overreact to every little thing?
I'd like us to be.
But I'm not sure we can.
Yet.