"Family, under pressure, removes its hanged dummy"

[kstar]

Are people too sensitive or was there a valid claim?

Family, under pressure, removes its hanged dummy

Display brought two days of turmoil to Madison

Tuesday, October 16, 2007
BY MELISSA CASTRO
Star-Ledger Staff

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."


BLURRED LINES

The incident revived the persistent question of what is entertaining and what is offensive.
"The lines have all been blurred, and people push the limits just to see how far we can go" to shock each other, said James Farrelly, a Halloween expert and professor of Irish studies at the University of Dayton. But Farrelly, a Newark native, said, "I don't know if we have a blank check to celebrate this by putting out our own sense of what we think is evil or might scare people."

D.J. Maines, the 27-year-old son of Cheryl and David Maines, has bedecked the house for seven Halloweens using $5,000 worth of decorations he has collected. He has used the hanging dummy each year, but usually it is partially hidden by other decorations.

George Martin, a deacon at the First Baptist Church, which Hazlewood attends, said the noose evoked personal memories of terror and loss growing up in the South in the 1950s and 1960s. He said he lost his great-uncle to a lynching in South Carolina. His father watched his uncle and a friend die in a lynching, he said.

"It's the same imagery we saw as young people -- black faces, dungarees and ropes around the body and neck," said Martin, who is also a member of the district board of education.

Cheryl Maines said she was not swayed by Martin's personal history.

"Don't bring your ancestors into this -- it's something that happened; you've got to get beyond it or you're going to make yourself sick," she said.

Madison police checked with the Morris County Prosecutor's Office to determine whether the noose display was illegal or could be ordered down, according to police records. Two assistant prosecutors and a detective reviewed the matter and answered no to both questions.

In New York, politicians, community leaders and activists are calling for a law that would make it a felony to use a noose to harass or play a prank. State Sen. Eric Adams and New York City leaders gathered Sunday on the steps of Columbia Teachers College to call for the stiffer penalty on noose incidents.


Staff writers Robert E. Williams III and Bill Swayze contributed to this report. Melissa Castro may be reached at (973) 539-7910 or mcastro@starledger.com.

© 2007 The Star Ledger© 2007 NJ.com All Rights Reserved.

FYI.

Best,

Kurt

[Tobra]

Typical, over reaction. You take something that clearly has nothing to do with race and say it is all about race to create some racial tension. I would have taken it down, put up the tallest flagpole I could and fly the stars and stripes upside down every day.

If they had hung an American soldier in effigy, people would be cheering.

[dtw]

The local FD at the beach we frequent hangs a dummy from the tree in front of their engine house around Halloween. I was shocked when I first saw it, if only b/c I was surprised it made it 10 minutes without a member of the PCPolice squawking and bleating.

Then again, the only minority I've ever seen on the island is my wife (latina). Even the cleaning ladies in the hotels are white.

[K. Roman]

Originally Posted by Tobra

If they had hung an American soldier in effigy, people would be cheering.

What people? It's people like who who instigate bul*****.

[RickM]

Madison is the next town over from me. Relatively affluent, apple pie, Mayberry type of town with a very small percentage of blacks.

I think the homeowner is right in stating that people need to move on. It's Halloween for crypes sake.

[Shawn 357]

People need hobbies.

[bt1211]

If it was a ghost or a mummy that was hanging OK but if you saw the pics, you would say WTF??

[cairns]

What's said is that the politically correct hold such sway- and we allow them to. But I can't blame these folks- they would have surely been subject to vandalism and violence.

Thank God Imus is coming back. I'm sure the left will be in agony but that makes it even more delicious. He'll probably take ten points off Hillary's New York poll numbers singlehandedly.

[Drago]

We've got one of these in my neighborhood. I think I'm going to complain.

[masraum]

hanging is a racist thing? WTF? Yeah, I suppose that if you do it in some areas and give the "dummy" dark skin, then yeah, it's probably racist, but as a Halloween decoration, it may be a bit over the top or tasteless, maybe, but racist?

I'd like to see a pictuer.

[masraum]

OK, now I see it.
If they had just given it a pumpkin for a head or put a scary mask on the thing or even a different color hood, it would have been fine, but it does look a bit odd. I guess it's supposed to be a black mask over the dummy's head, but I suspect that from a distance, like the street in front of the house, it probably looks like it's supposed to be a black guy.

[dd74]

I'm offended by the Blessed Mother's presence in this display.

[masraum]

If I drove past a house in lots of places in Louisiana or Texas or Alabama, I would definitely look twice and wonder what the message was.

And I don't like the PC movement, and I'm not sensitive. I'm pretty thick skinned and I like to give people the benefit of a doubt.