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Hanging effigies in trees for Halloween

Jrrarglblarg said:
Well first of all, Samhain has very little cultural penetration into bulk Americana either from the original Celtic pagan or modern neopagan directions.

And second, Samhain lacks any ritualistic representations or reenactments of murders, executions or sacrifices.

Samhain has Jack crap to do with how Americans think about hanged bodies and only marginally informs the semiotic lexicon of American Halloween.
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Please tell me that's a joke
 
scarlettinlondon said:
I'm English. I'm so snowy blondy white as to be nearly pale blue.
It's racist. It looks like a lynching. That's the very first thing I thought of, and I don't have a great grounding in American history. It doesn't look like a Halloween display. Here in the UK it's mostly witches and black cats and spiders on webs anyway.
It wouldn't be pleasant or rational to my eyes if they were snowy white effigies with mermaid hairdos. It would still be a horrible display and totally unnecessary. As it is, the effigies look black and the look like they've been lynched. Bloody poor show.
Is Halloween really an opportunity to be as vile as possible in the states? Here it's for kids. I don't think hanging anything up in a tree here other than perhaps some rubber bats or a spider would really happen. Although I may be wrong
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Me too
 
Hanging an effigy is symbolism of a sort, but the holocaust and lynching/slavery are just too dated. Only historians care about that stuff. Plainly, they are symbols of someone's anti-Muslim stance.

Saddam Hussein was hanged in 2006, only ten years ago. He was a Muslim leader. We should acknowledge this fact.
 
scarlettinlondon said:
I'm English. I'm so snowy blondy white as to be nearly pale blue.
It's racist. It looks like a lynching. That's the very first thing I thought of, and I don't have a great grounding in American history. It doesn't look like a Halloween display. Here in the UK it's mostly witches and black cats and spiders on webs anyway.
It wouldn't be pleasant or rational to my eyes if they were snowy white effigies with mermaid hairdos. It would still be a horrible display and totally unnecessary. As it is, the effigies look black and the look like they've been lynched. Bloody poor show.
Is Halloween really an opportunity to be as vile as possible in the states? Here it's for kids. I don't think hanging anything up in a tree here other than perhaps some rubber bats or a spider would really happen. Although I may be wrong
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If you hang someone and leave them hanging, the skin turns quite dark (or so I've been told)
 
English here, don't understand the debate, it's a lynching on that guys front yard, whether you're from Canada or timbuktu it's a mock up of a lynching.
 
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i was shocked to see it.
is that protected under free speech, or did they face consequences?

as for the swastika, sorry but for those more likely to have been affected it does have power.
personally i found it confronting to stand in town squares in germany, thinking what would have happened to me 70 years ago, in that same spot.
having a swastika there would have been the living end for me.
 
mikado said:
i was shocked to see it.
is that protected under free speech?
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If the person who created it had simply put up a sign saying "I hate black people", I don't think that would be a free speech issue, offensive as it would be.

Question is whether this could be construed as incitement to violence.
 
Suspended figures of ghosts, skeletons, rotted corpses/zombies, witches, and scarecrows are fairly common Halloween displays here in the suburban and rural Northeast. The suspension being from trees is common because there are trees everywhere here to hang them from. (Putting up poles for the purpose would be more strange.)

While the suspension is often from the neck because that is a convenient means of attachment (with the top of the head or the back being frequently used alternatives), it's more unusual to use a visible noose and rope, which obviously suggests the aftermath of a hanging (which could be either a judicial execution or a lynching). Still, it's possible to suspend a scarecrow by a visible neck rope and still have it read "scarecrow" rather than "lynching" or "hanging in effigy." (Think of the scene in The Wizard of Oz.) The details matter. A scarecrow would hang with its feet at or very near ground level, would have the hanging rope tied directly around the tree rather than thrown over a higher branch and tied off, would be dressed in worn or tattered farmyard clothing (e.g. overalls), and would not have its wrists or legs bound.

Ghosts or witches suspended higher would be simulations of the figures floating or flying, not lynchings. A pirate, outlaw, "Inquisition victim," or similar figure (whether depicted as partly rotted or as wretchedly still alive) could be suspended in a gibbet; that's a more elaborate and therefore rarer display but would not attract social controversy (though it might be objected to if deemed too gory or frightening).

The display in question, even if it really were intended as a generic non-racial Halloween horror scene ("some ordinary people of no particular type got themselves hung for no particular reason, how horrible!"), has everything wrong with it, making it difficult to charitably interpret that way. The figures' dress and proportions, the bound limbs, the rigging of the ropes, all read not only "lynching scene" but "lynching scene modified to depict present-day urban victims."

The juxtaposition of the Trump sign appears to be coincidental. (I would understand, and sympathize a bit, if the deliberate intended message had been "this is what Trump really stands for" in response to the neighbor's yard sign. Though that still would have been misguided, and in any case there doesn't seem to have been any such intent in that direction.)

So overall, I find the display quite objectionable and offensive, while in the interest of freedom of expression (and in the absence of any clear imminent threat of violence to any specific person on group) do not wish to see any legal sanctions or any private vandalism undertaken in response.
 
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Myriad said:
The juxtaposition of the Trump sign appears to be coincidental. (I would understand, and sympathize a bit, if the deliberate intended message had been "this is what Trump really stands for" in response to the neighbor's yard sign. Though that still would have been misguided, and in any case there doesn't seem to have been any such intent in that direction.)
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How would we even be able to tell the difference?
 
Argumemnon said:
How would we even be able to tell the difference?
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We might take note, for instance, of whether upon hearing that the display has caused controversy, the owner posts a sign saying something to the effect of, "This shows what Trump really stands for," or something more to the effect of, "Please don't be ignorant, it's Halloween."
 
Do we have any information from the owner at all?

If not, we can't conclude either way, so it's misleading to say that there doesn't seem to be any such intent.
 
Argumemnon said:
Do we have any information from the owner at all?
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Yes. We have reports and photographs of a sign added to the display, reading, "Please don't be ignorant. It's Halloween."

Hence, I'd characterize my statement that there doesn't seem to be any such [anti Trump] intent as not so much misleading, as informative. You're free to take it however you prefer, though.
 
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