Thread: I don't want to start a riot here

Tweet

After the last ToTer, my husband and I discussed what one major prop we should build for next year. He suggested a gallows.

After watching the local news (brief artricle below), I vetoed that idea.

Frat in hot water over 'Halloween in the Hood'

(Baltimore, Maryland-NBC) October 31, 2006 - Johns Hopkins University says it's investigating a weekend frat party that some say had racial undertones.

The party's theme was "Halloween in the Hood" and reportedly depicted a human figure hanging on a noose at the Sigma Chi fraternity house.

The figure had a hood on it and was dressed as a pirate.

University officials shut the party down around 1:30 Sunday morning after receiving complaints.

An e-mail invitation to the party described the party's location near the Hopkins' Homewood Campus as the "ghetto" and the "HIV pit".

People had been asked to wear fur coats, copious amounts of so-called "bling bling ice ice" and to bring "grills, hoochie hoops, white tees and air force ones."

A university spokesman described the activity as intolerable and is well beyond the scope of acceptable behavior.

I don't want to get into the issue of protected speech, self-censoring and the Bill of Rights. I am not asking to get into a debate about race relations, political correctness, campus policies, or second-guessing the intentions of the party throwers (since simplar issues are brought up on recent threads). I'm not even speculating about the theme of the party, which may be perceived as poor taste or inflammatory. (Personally, I wonder if anyone would have associated the skeleton with a lynching if the theme of the party hadn't been "bling.")

When is a hanging pirate skelly just a hanging pirate skelly? Has someone taken a look at your prop and called it tasteless, insensitive or offensive? How did you react? Did you stop displaying it? Tone it down? Post a sign?

I had a hanging pirate this year, and I did not have any comments one way or the other. My was just a dummy, dressed as a pirate, hanging from a gallows. I think if you start getting graphic with your display, that's when you start having issues.

There are those among us who have the ability to find objection with just about anything. Although we must sometimes consider "impact" vs "intent" , a general rule of how a "normal" thinking person of the majority would interprit any given subject matter, should apply. Majority meaning largest percentage of witnesses to said event, non specific of ethnicity, gender, etc... This being said, I would have been offended by that scene only if I was aware of the party theme, but not a gallows in the context of a fantasy theme.
So Hang 'em High from the Yardarms!
here's my "gallows" from this year,(my interpritation of the hanging tree in Nightmare before christmas)
http://www.sinisterspace.com/profile...30&sub_id=6925

That House: Love the title! "Swingers!" Ha!

This may be considered opening the subject of race, but I'm just responding with what we did...
I haven't had any negative reaction that I was told about yet. But last year we "hung" a kid as the final scene in the haunt..my friends then 12 yr old son(and done very safely with rock climbing harness and nothing attached to his throat other than a loop of rope that was not attached anywhere else). He was the TOTer we "caught" vandalizing with eggs,tp, etc...we put a black hood on him and "hung" him. I heard nothing bad about it, even though we are in Nashville,TN, and more than half our attendees were black.(And all of us are white). This year we took the clothes he was wearing last year, put them on a mannequin torso and hung it inside a dark tunnel...our guests ran into it in the dark and it was suddenly lit with a strobe.
No comments reached me on it...before we did the stunt last year I had read about problems with someones gallows prop being destroyed(it had a werewolf in it-the problem seemed to be that the monster hands it had were black...black with huge claws and furry, but black).
I will say, if Kevin(the kid) had been black, I would not have let him do it for just that reason...it would be too much. There is oversensitivity, but there is also priming the pump.
We were doing a medieval theme, and the hangman was dressed as such. I would say the pirate skelly was certainly overreacted too, but you are right, the theme had as much to do with it. A pirate theme with the pirate skelly would likely have been ok.
And it may depend on where you live. It was risky for us, but it came off well...I wouldn't reject it offhand..you could do it...sans a hood, perhaps a monster or a skeleton within the theme of the rest of the haunt. We also had a medieval dungeon scene, so it all fit together...

I never made the connection between a hangman prop and lynching until last year, when someone mentioned it on an "objectionable prop" page. I guess I'm just naive in some ways. Now that I know better, I personally would never have a hangman scene (and we were considering one for our pirate set-up) because I wouldn't want to raise those sorts of associations. Still, I think they are fine if worked into a pirate/medieval/torture setting; they're just outside of my personal comfort zone now. If I lived in the South? NO WAY!!!

In the south-Well, that why we were careful to make it seem an execution rather than a lynching. With an official proclamation of the charges a la Jack Sparrow.
For a pirate scene I would include a sign that says "Pirates ye be warned"
That should help the intent.
But like Thathouse said, someone can always find a way to freak...pay no mind, do what you like.

Hang George Bush - doh that's probably illegal

Hang Osama Bin Laden-- uh, no..the jihad will probly come to YOUR house then

Lets see:
You cant hang persons of any discernable ethnic group
You cant hang persons with any sort of religious affiliation
You cant hang anyone represented by a political lobby
You cant hang animal figures, or the SPCA will get you
You cant hang pirates

I guess the answer is....you just cant hang anymore. dang

The only things that are okay to mock:

Straight White Male Christian Americans.

It is improper to utter anything about flaming homo black female atheist Canadians.

wilbret, you always have something witty to add.