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Originally Posted by DanaC
Ithink I probably have a slightly different oreintation to effigies than you do. They traditionally play quite a large role in protest here, and our most treasured national tradition involves burning one. When my eldest niece finished primary school, she and her friends and my bro's family had a big celebratory bonfire in their back garden, at which the kids burned an effigy of their most hated teacher, stuffed full with old school notes.
Around Guy Fawkes Night, kids take 'Guys' that they've made, around in a wheelbarrow and ask people for "a penny for the Guy" to gather money for fireworks and sweets. Though it's traditionally meant to be Guy Fawkes, there is also a sub tradition of making the Guy look like an unpopular figure of the day.
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I completely respect that and think the whole Guy Fawkes thing is pretty cool. We left the UK a week before the celebration the last time we were there and were disapointed that we could not stay on.
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I still think there is a vast difference between hanging up a Halloween dummy to look like a politician of the day, and hanging up an effigy of the first black cntender for president. Your country has a recent history of lynching black people: the Palin effigy cannot hold the same cultural resonance (and therefore importance) as hanging the effigy of a black man.
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Completely true. The point is that there is becoming this blatant duplicity and double standard surrounding protest, visual, or virtual (internet) that is accepted by one group, but if displayed by another the race card is played. That is a problem and will remain a problem for many. I completely and whole heartedly support equality among races and ethnic groups, regardless of who you are and were you came from. I do not support reversal of roles, duplicity, double standards, or assumption of roles of submissiveness in exchange for roles of dominance because of some historical wrong from generations past. I carry no guilt because of some BS that happened over 100 years ago. Never will. As a person of Scottish/Irish decent I could conjure up many historical wrong doings and oppressive acts. That is not something to carry from generation to generation, nor is it something to ingrain into the consciousness of my children or children's children only to keep open old wounds and festering hate. Equality? I am all for it. Something else? No. I have no problem what so ever with a black or half white president.