Obama Hanged in Effigy at Kentucky
University of Kentucky police cut down a likeness of Sen. Barack Obama that had been hanged in effigy Wednesday morning, the Kentucky Kernel reports. The likeness, which was found hanging from a tree between a parking lot and a school building between 8 a.m. and 9 a.m., wore khaki pants, a blue sports coat, and a mask of a black man, according to one of the students who first saw the figure. "I was disgusted and hurt someone would deface the university and put something up of this magnitude," student A. J. Mertz said.
UK President Lee Todd said he would personally apologize to the Obama family on behalf of the university. He said he was "outraged and hurt" by the display and "personally offended and deeply embarrassed by this disgusting episode."
Federal authorities have been notified of the incident, and UK police have the effigy as evidence. Police believe it was placed in the well-trafficked area on the Lexington campus overnight and are searching for witnesses.
The incident is the second one of its kind on a college campus this fall. In September, officials at George Fox University outside Portland, Ore., discovered a cardboard cutout of Obama hanging from a tree.
Tags: presidential election 2008 | Barack Obama | University of Kentucky | police
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Reader Comments
Obama
Is there any way people can stop yelling "racist" whenever a black person is critisized? And making a joke if it's a white person. Racism is when someone is critized because he is black, not because a white person disagrees with his/her stance on any subject, and visea versa. If we can't disagree with a person of another race, we have lost our freedom of speach.
Re Palin versus Obama
Clearly, those that argue that the Palin depiction is tantamount to the Obama depiction and are pursuing a "self victimizing" double standard cry are neglecting the obvious cultural and historical difference in the impetus to hang an individual with African descent. Even the legal institution differentiates between hate crimes and non-hate crimes. Simply, hate crimes require a level of societal harm that damages the very fabric of a free society as it challenges the tolerance that we champion. I'd recommend you end self victimization efforts as there is an obvious cultural advantage even today for those of non minority descent.
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