Halloween: A Time For Tricks, Treats, And Racism?

Last week, Americans celebrated Halloween by dressing up, trick-or-treating, and participating in festivities. These are the activities most commonly associated with the holiday. Why then, was Halloween this year, a year for goblins, witches and racism? The words “Halloween” and “racism” seem entirely unrelated, but when I navigated through the blogosphere, I discovered that the two ideas are somewhat linked. The first post I looked at is from The Washington Post’s section titled, “On Faith”. Contributor Susan Brooks Thistlethwaite wrote the post titled, “Why Halloween Is No Fun Anymore.” After receiving her Ph.D. from Duke University, Thistlethwaite became the president of the Chicago Theological Seminary. She has also been a professor at the Seminary for twenty years, teaching about civil rights issues and violations. In her post, she claims that everyday is Halloween; people do not need to dress up like ghouls once a year because the ghosts of their racist past are present everywhere. The second post I commented on is titled, “It’s All Just a Noose-ance” from the conservative blog “Publius Forum”. The author of the post, Warner Todd Huston is a featured writer for the News Media Journal and an editor for the NMJ Radio Headline News Roundtable. His blog post discusses the over-reaction the local Muncie government has had in response to the hanging of Halloween nooses on a rearview mirror (an image of a Halloween decoration using a noose is provided on the right). My comments to their blog posts are below:

"Why Halloween is No Fun Anymore"
Comment:
Thank you for writing an intriguing post about how Halloween is an obsolete holiday due to the presence of “demons” or “ignorance” in our society. You make a compelling argument, that “devils [are] walking among us today in our failure to confront the ghosts of our past in the real horror of lynching.” These “devils” and “ghosts” of our past are scary enough; forget using costumes to ward spirits away, we have photos and memories of police battery, burning crosses and hate crimes. I wonder then, if you have read anything about the Muncie incident in which a sanitation worker was suspended from work for hanging Halloween decorations, nooses to be more precise, from his rearview mirror. In your post, you wrote, ““White America in particular is afraid to look at this history”—a history of black oppression—“ and in shunning it continues to be gripped by it.” How do you explain the swift actions of the local authorities in the Muncie case? This example appears to counteract your claim that White America is scared to look into the mirror and confront its discriminatory past because the people in Muncie acted with justice to reprimand a seemingly racist action. Does not using legal action to protect minorities display efforts to right a wrongful past? Also, if you consider these actions to be the wrong way to confront and deal with a racist history, how else do you propose we remedy the issue?

"It's All Just a Noose-ance"
Comment:
First off, I’d like to thank you for writing such an interesting blog post. I agree with a few of your points, one being the fact that the sanitation worker was treated too harshly for his Halloween display. I do feel, as you said, the authorities “[took] a simple misunderstanding and [turned] it into a miscarriage of justice.” The sanitation worker, supported by his black co-workers, had no racist intent when he hung up the ropes on his mirror; regardless of his demeanor, he was suspended from work without pay for a month. However, I disagree with your comment that “the era in America when a noose was a clear and present threat to a black person in America has gone.” Take, for instance, the Jena-6 incident in which 3 nooses were hung below a tree to intimidate African-Americans from sitting beneath the “white tree.” This event resulted in a series of violent acts between white and black students at the school. Another example is from earlier this month; a noose was wrapped around a black Columbia professor’s office door. Nooses continue to be potent symbol of hate, and the usage of noose imagery has been recently resurfacing. You also wrote, “while a noose may not be the first thing one thinks of when Halloween decor is discussed, it certainly isn’t altogether an uncommon vestige of the holiday.” Surely nooses are intended to be merely decorative around Halloween, but post-Civil War, the noose has taken on a new meaning, becoming a symbol of intimidation towards black people. Take into consideration another potent symbol of oppression, the swastika. How would a Jewish person feel if they saw a swastika scribbled on a public wall? The swastika has the same chilling effect on a Jewish person that a noose would have on an African-American person. To mitigate the use of discriminatory images and avoid “miscarriages of justice”, there needs to be more cultural sensitivity and awareness.

Racism And The Law Still Intertwined: Will Equal Rights Ever Be Attainable?

Inequality under the legal system was supposed to be non-existent after the 1960’s Civil Rights Movement, culminating with the civil rights act. This act outlawed discrimination of any kind based on ethnicity, gender or religious orientation. Dishearteningly, an act almost fifty years old has yet to take full effect; as the Martin Lee Anderson(his image on the left) case demonstrates, discrimination still lingers within American courtrooms. The verdict of the case on October 12 of this year reaffirms the notion that the judicial system continues to be riddled with bias. The courts acquitted seven camp guards and a nurse of manslaughter after fourteen-year old inmate Martin Lee Anderson died under their supervision. Caught on tape was a thirty-minute video of the seven camp guards dragging, choking and beating Anderson as the nurse watched; all of this abuse ensued solely because Anderson collapsed after a routine run. Fortunately “after Anderson's death, the Legislature dismantled the military-style youth boot camps,” but the death of a child was necessary to prompt the end of these camps in Florida. Regardless of the Legislature’s delayed actions, the sequence of events ignited outrage within the Florida community; as a result of the verdict, the local NAACP sponsored a protest on October 23, gathering an estimated 700 protestors.

Defendants of the seven camp guards and nurse argued that Anderson died from internal bleeding as a result of undiagnosed sickle-cell anemia, “a blood disorder that can hinder blood cells’ ability to carry oxygen during physical stress.” "An initial autopsy said he died from a genetic blood disorder, sickle-cell trait, while a second autopsy said he suffocated when guards clamped his mouth shut and held ammonia capsules under his nose for several minutes.” In response to Anderson’s passing out, the guards claimed they “handled what they thought was a juvenile offender faking illness to avoid exercising on his first day in the camp.” Defense attorneys even argued that “camp workers were using acceptable tactics”, but the video footage shows otherwise. The term “acceptable” is used loosely by the defense; choking and shoving pills down a semi-conscious adolescent’s throat does not constitute “acceptable” under any circumstances. If anything, these actions indicate excessive force and a violation of civil rights.

Included in these civil rights is the right to a fair trial. The fairness of the case has been called into question because of the jury composition, which consisted of only white people. “A pool of 1,400 people was initially called to find six jurors and four alternates. Defense attorneys asked that four black potential jurors be disqualified from service, while prosecutors eliminated one black potential juror themselves before a final jury and alternates, none of them black, was chosen.” Chuck Hobbs, a legal counsel for the NAACP said treat African-Americans differently from white people. Executive director for the Florida State Conference NAACP he “was surprised to learn that prosecutors removed a black woman from the jury that the defense wanted.” Creating an impartial jury is important in upholding the law, and the fact that there were no ethnic minorities in the jury does give cause for speculation. Whether or not the removal of all potential black jurors was intentional will be difficult to prove, and does not address the main issue within the case. The fact still remains that the police and the judicial system generally Beverlye Neal claims, “in 2007, we’re still dealing with blatant racism and no concern for black life.” Martin Lee Anderson was deprived of medical attention after he passed out, and instead, he was offered a series of pushes and kicks. The most visible illustration of the unfair ruling is described by Hobbs. He reports, “The jurors also acquitted them (the camp guards and nurse) of manslaughter, child neglect and culpable negligence.” Employees at the boot camp had a responsibility to Anderson, a child under their watch and care. The verdict of the case illustrates the devaluing of an African-American’s life. Regardless of Anderson’s history and criminal record, there is no excuse for beating an incapacitated person. Discouragingly, the Anderson verdict is just one example out of many that conveys the immense disparity between African-Americans and white people in the criminal law system. Capital punishment statistics affirm the notion that a black life is worth less than a white person’s. Based on statistics from 1983 to 1993, the figure on the middle right indicates that in Philadelphia alone, blacks were thirty-eight percent more likely than whites to be sentenced to death for similar crimes. Based on values from 1976 to 1994, “nearly 40% of those executed since 1976 have been black, even though blacks constitute only 12% of the population.” The chart on the left also depicts bias; the race of the victims influenced whether or not the defendant received the death penalty. If the victim was white, the defendant was more likely to be sentenced to death row than if the victim was black. Although the data appears outdated, it reflects the trends that exist within criminal law today. With a system that projects discrimination, how are African-Americans supposed to guard themselves against their claimed governmental protectors? If the keepers of justice are prejudice, then African-Americans are left defenseless against institutionalized racism. The black community will have to use out-of-doors organizations like the NAACP to ensure that their rights are safeguarded.

Since the recent protest (image on right), “the FSC NAACP has requested the U.S. Department of Justice’s Civil Rights Division to investigate the circumstances surrounding the case bought by the State of Florida in Bay County, and more importantly, to follow up on the FSC NAACP’s initial request in March 2006, calling for the U.S. District Attorney in North Florida to conduct an investigation into and charge those responsible for the civil rights violations evident in Martin Lee Anderson’s death.” Efforts to remove hints of bias from the judicial system send a hopeful message to African-Americans. The progress of the American government since the 1960’s in removing manifest discrimination from most of its institutions is praiseworthy, but furtive elements of partiality still remain. The civil rights movement did not just end with the Civil Rights act; it is an ongoing struggle minorities face to achieve equal protection under the law.

Justice in Jena Is Not Colorblind: The Civil Rights Talk Resurfaces

The recent protests in Jena, Louisiana, have sparked a revivalism of civil rights talk. A photo of the protests is right below. The protests were a reaction to the unequal treatment the justice system placed upon six African-American high-school students after they battered a fellow Caucasian student. The incident resulted in the six African-American students or the “Jena 6” being tried as adults with the charge of attempted murder for a crime that resembled battery rather than attempted murder. The continuing disparity between African-Americans and Caucasians, at least in the eyes of the law, is what today’s entry will describe. I entered the blogosphere to find two blogs that commented on the Jena-6, and the racial inequalities that still persist in American society today. Today’s entry will consist of commentary I left for both blogs’ entries. The first blog post I commented on is from the blog Political Radar, a blog that focuses on a variety of political phenomenon. The author of the blog post, “Clinton Praises Jena 6 Reversal” is ABC News reporter Eloise Harper. In Harper’s blog post, she imparts bits and pieces of what presidential hopeful Hillary Clinton has in store for mitigating racial injustice and inequality. The second blog post I commented on is from the blog “The Situationist”, a blog created by Harvard Law professor Jon Hanson, Michael McCann, an assistant professor of Law. The blog is also also written and maintained by a list of contributors from the law and psychology fields. I commented on the blog post titled “Jena 6-Part II”, which provides significant studies of crime and punishment, and gathers pertinent articles concerning racial inequalities within the judicial system.

“Clinton Praises Jena Reversal”
Comment:
Your post is provocative and engaging, especially since the race issue within the United States will be a hot topic in the up and coming presidential debates. Undoubtedly, immigration and the partiality of the criminal justice system are all problems that any future president will have to face. Naturally, Hillary Clinton would be applauding the reversal of one of the Jena-6’s harsh sentences, especially at an NAACP fundraising event. If she had reacted otherwise, her black supporters would probably look towards another presidential hopeful. Clinton’s efforts to gain votes, especially within the African-American community, seem to be appealing to the sensitive issues that impact them, specifically Katrina and the Jena-6, but how much of her presidential promises can she keep? The deep-rooted issue of racism and bias will not just dissolve itself if you give a lot of money and benefits to the hurricane Katrina victims. As for the Jena-6 incident, I agree with Clinton that social awareness needs to be funneled into the school system. You mention one of Clinton’s civil rights plans, the “voluntary integration” of local school districts to prevent instances like Jena-6, but this plan is only a stepping stone. Clinton’s plan seems rather undeveloped, providing schools with a choice on whether or not to integrate when the issue of racism threatens one core American value, equality.

“Jena 6-Part II”
Comment:
I found your post to be an intriguing and effective compilation of works and pieces supporting your idea that Jena-6 was a mere sample of the racial inequality within the American criminal justice system. However, I feel there is need for clarification in your statement, “the ‘attitudes’ that we do not perceive in ourselves are often more powerful in shaping our conduct…”. This statement appears to somewhat discredit cognitive thought as a cause for behavior, when in fact the conscious plays a significant, if not equal role in determining behavior. I understand that in your argument, unacknowledged biases can translate into unfair treatment and a partial judicial system, but the events leading up to the Jena protests were blatant examples of hate crimes and intimidation. The F.B.I. investigated the noose incident on the “white tree” but nothing resulted from their investigation. Has there been any research preformed indicating the failure of not just the judiciary, but the F.B.I. and other various governmental institutions from protecting the rights of minorities? True, the problem of racism can manifest itself in unrealized biases and on the surface, as the nooses show, but the judicial system, and other governmental institutions should bear some of the blame for their inaction in this case. I suppose, though, that my last statement compliments your argument, that institutionalized racism stems from each individual’s biases.