By NEAL McNAMARA
neal.mcnamara@heraldbulletin.com
The front lawn of Central Avenue resident Tamra Clark’s home is filled with bones, eyeballs and corpses. When you walk up to her door, you feel like someone is about to suck your blood. And that’s just how she wants you to feel.
Even though she’s filled every inch of her yard with scary Halloween fun, Clark says there’s a difference between scary and offensive.
“On Halloween night, we have people stand in the bushes ... just so the kids can have a really fun time,” said Clark. “Halloween, it’s really for the kids.”
But a string of incidents in our area and across the country have exposed disagreement about whether certain Halloween decorations are offensive. At least four recent incidents, including one in Anderson and one in Muncie, involved nooses or a hanging effigy used as Halloween decor.
A Muncie sanitation worker was suspended Thursday for hanging nooses on his truck as a “Halloween decoration.” Several days ago in Anderson, a neighborhood dispute erupted over a Halloween decoration that was hung by a rope attached to a tree limb.
In Staten Island, N.Y., a man hung a black-hooded figure from a noose, flanked by another noose as an apparent “Halloween prop.” And a couple in Madison, N.J., who had a figure hanging by a noose from the chimney took it down after a public outcry.
James Burgess, president of the Madison County chapter of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, was present at the Anderson incident where a man had a “monster” hanging from a tree; the man removed the monster after Burgess and the man’s neighbor requested it be taken down.
Burgess says that accepting the image of a noose or a lynching as a Halloween joke is unacceptable.
“I think we need to look a little more closely, not so much in terms of always punishing people, but as far as educating,” said Burgess. “When a hangman noose is on a dummy, people think that they’re showing something that’s ghoulish, or Halloweenish.”
State University of New York at Albany sociology professor Dr. Richard Lachmann, who has studied American culture and Halloween, said that Halloween lets people dress up and be anonymous, which can lead to “nasty and offensive” behavior.
“Part of Halloween is having ghoulish things ... like a Halloween display with a noose and an ax,” said Lachmann. “But if you have a noose with nothing else, that has a different meaning. It’s clearly a racist symbol.”
Lachmann said that the noose, as a symbol, is very clear. America has a long history of lynching, he said, and a noose hanging among Halloween decorations may have a less-than-subtle meaning to some.
Pearl Street resident Cathy Moore, who has elaborate plastic vampires, pumpkins and witches adorning her front porch, says she doesn’t have a problem with using a noose among other Halloween paraphernalia.
“How can (nooses) offend anyone?” said Moore. “That was 100 years ago. We decorate for the kids. Whatever catches my eye, I put out (in front of my house.)”
The incident in Anderson ended peacefully, when the hanging “monster” was voluntarily taken down by its owner. But, says Burgess, people should be wary of using Halloween as a cover to do whatever they want.
“What if they start using Halloween to kill somebody and say, ‘It’s only a prank — we didn’t mean it?’” he said.
Considering what the real meaning — to her — of Halloween is, Clark again said that “it’s for the kids.” She said she’s been decorating her house for years, and that a former neighbor traveled from Alexandria to visit her display.
“I wouldn’t hang up a noose just for the simple fact that I wouldn’t want to offend anyone,” said Clark.
