Racist Halloween Display Nightmares

This Halloween figure of a man hanging from a tree was taken down after passers-by objected. (Photo/Tom Lynn)

Apparently, this is a nationwide phenomenon.

Outdoor Halloween displays are coming under fire for alleged racist elements.

If you are considering turning your yard into a ghoulish fright site, DON'T INCLUDE A DUMMY HANGING FROM A NOOSE.

Greenfield, WISCONSIN:

A dark mannequin figure was hanging from a tree in front of a Greenfield home. Some members of the African-American community complained it was insensitive and had racial overtones.

The homeowner has taken that figure down, but neighbors didn’t see this as a racial issue.

“It didn’t really strike me as anything unusual. It just looked like part of the graveyard scene,” neighbor Julie Salmeron said.

The owner says she never intended to offend anyone. The homeowner said the family hung the same mannequin last year for about six weeks without a single complaint and she was surprised by the negative attention it received this year.

The offensive Halloween decoration has been removed, but a makeshift cemetery remains in the front yard with about half a dozen headstones and a partially buried coffin with skeleton heads poking out.

Lenard Wells, a community leader who says a number of people complained to him about the display, says he’s glad the figure has been taken down.

"Sometimes we may forget we may be only a few blocks away from insensitivity," said Wells, the director of adult education at Concordia University South Center. "The question becomes, why couldn't they see the insensitivity of this Halloween display?"

I find it interesting that the homeowner used the same display, the same mannequin hanging from a tree, last year at Halloween without any complaints. Six weeks and not a word.

A lot can change in a year, I guess.

Is the problem that the mannequin was dark? Had the "body" been lighter in color would the response have been the same?

This same sort of "insensitivity" reared its ugly head in a similar Halloween display on the East Coast.

Madison, NEW JERSEY:

Chesla Flood couldn't believe her eyes. A hangman's noose circled the neck of a black-hooded, jeans-clad dummy suspended from the chimney of a house in Madison.

Flood called her mother, Millie Hazlewood, who reported the Halloween display to police. She wasn't the only one. Police went to the property at least three times starting Sunday, and even the mayor asked the homeowners to take down the figure.

At 8 last night, the family relented, saying they feared for their safety.

"It's no more like freedom of speech anymore," Cheryl Maines said. "My son had to take this down because these people have blown this thing out of proportion."

Before the figure was removed yesterday, Madison Mayor Ellwood "Woody" Kerkeslager said "the appearance and the suggestion (of racism) is there, and it's inappropriate."

At least four recent noose displays -- one each in Jena, La., and Philadelphia and two in New York City -- are drawing renewed attention to a potent symbol of racism, lynchings and the era of Jim Crow segregation.

Unlike those incidents, the Madison figure was part of a Halloween display, and for two days, homeowners Cheryl and David Maines, the borough's superintendent of public works, refused to budge. They said they had done nothing wrong.

Meanwhile, the state chapter of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People denounced the display as offensive, racist and insensitive.

"I think there are many people who understand the significance of a noose as it relates to the history of African-Americans," said James Harris, president of the NAACP's state chapter. "We thought we lived beyond the era when people felt it was okay to have that type of display."

Last night, the Maines family said they would be replacing their Halloween display and erecting a sign reading: "Thanks to the assistance of Millie Hazlewood and her friends, Halloween and Christmas decorations will no longer be celebrated here."

In this report from The Star-Ledger, staff writer Melissa Castro mentions a Halloween dummy in the same breath as other noose displays that were clearly meant to be racist expressions.

That's unfair.

I do think that a distinction needs to be made between good-natured Halloween decorations using dummies and intentionally racist symbols.

I feel sorry for the families that meant no harm, but were attacked for their holiday displays.

Personally, we've never gone the scary, graveyard route when it comes to Halloween decorating. But if we had received complaints about something in our yard being racially insensitive, I wouldn't fight it. I'd remove it right away.

I wouldn't want a holiday to turn into a nightmare. I wouldn't want to offend anyone.

That said, I think people need to lighten up a bit.

These are Halloween displays!

You know, ghosts and goblins and graveyards.

They aren't evoking images of lynchings of African-Americans.

Not EVERY noose should be taken as a racial offense.

In our nation's history, people of all ages, every race, and each gender were put to death by hanging.

In the 17th century, "witches" were hanged in Salem. Through the 18th and 19th centuries, hanging was the standard method of execution in the U.S. colonies and the new nation. Think of the Old West.

In the 20th century at Nuremberg, Nazi war criminals were sentenced to death by hanging.

People still die that way in other countries. Homosexuals in Iran and Saddam Hussein are some recent examples.

Did the NAACP address the images of those ACTUAL hangings as being insensitive to African-Americans? Did the group complain that U.S. media outlets were insensitive for showing the hooded Saddam Hussein hanging?

I'm not diminishing the "significance of a noose as it relates to the history of African-Americans," as James Harris puts it. It's real and it's disturbing.

I'm merely saying that perhaps one wouldn't be offended by the Halloween displays if one would take the context into consideration.

Context matters.

It's Halloween, not a KKK rally.