This could be a definition example of 'thoughtless' and 'insensitive.' Putting such violent images within sight of an elementary school is absolutely unacceptable.
Reference to a movie or not, our country has too horrible a history of brutal racism to try to cast lynching in a comic light. This isn't something a person should be forced to recall, much less explain to a child.
Legitimate question: *How* does it merit losing her job?
Don't be so quick to judge. Yes, there are people who do not even think about race at all and that does not make them racist, and IMO makes them less so, not more. A few years a hair salon opened on the UWS, named "The Colorbar". I was kind of flabbergasted and also obliquely offended, though as a Jewish I'm now considered almost white in much of America. I mentioned it to one of my few Black neighbors, an older gentleman who was "not surprised", said he'ed been dealing with stuff like that all his life, and he assumed it was on purpose. Well, it turned out the owners were from the Middle East and really had zero clue about what that word meant 50+ years ago, and had no intention of offending anyone. They changed the name. Don't be so quick to judge.
8
White people writ large are definitely not sensitive enough to the specific issues our African America neighbors face. I'm constantly embarrassed and angered at the vulgar dismissal of black citizens' concerns by other white people, not to mention my own oversights from time to time. I do wish however that social media didn't blow up situations like this one. When people righteously pile on like this it can really damage lives. This lady resigned from her job? If she had already apologized and taken the images down that seems like gratuitous punishment. She made a dumb mistake but she is a foreigner from another country with different historical visual references and clearly did not intend to hurt anyone. It's really good that deeper conversations were sparked but this lady seems like just as much a victim in this situation as anyone else. I'm not sure why her name needs to be published and she needs to field criticism beyond the neighborhood where this all happened.
11
The protesters demanded that the ceramics coop where Ms. Rose worked "get out of the neighborhood"? This is mindless vigilantism, looking for someone to hang. You might even say "lynch".
16
Everyone knows what a noose means. Does this woman think that we are stupid? No excuse at all.she needs her head examined and her heart and soul
3
@Jean
No, not "everyone knows what a noose means" to you, neither are some of us in a hurry to participate in the rush to judgment and subsequent 'lynching' of this lady.
Other things I think about with nooses are 1) playing hangman, 2) lynchings (western/cowboy movie style), 3) suicide. The noose is a universal symbol of execution and to limit it's symbolic reference to one particular place and time against one people is a little historically myopic.
10
Am I understanding this article correctly? The woman who displayed the figures in nooses made some apology on Facebook -- and that was it? She wasn't involved in the later discussions? That's great the art store folks had a frank discussion, but frank discussion is also needed with the perpetrator.
2
While I was reading this article and the sadness and dismay felt by those who "don't recognize my neighborhood anymore"--their stories of lost identity with all the gentrification--I couldn't help but think of rural manufacturing / blue collar folks who are losing their identities and sense of value, being replaced by multiple cultures in city jobs who don't understand the rural poor hardscrabble roots, their religion, or their culture. They feel de-valued, too.
I am not equating racism to rural evisceration. They are different, obviously. But both require us to have empathy and respect--and hard conversations.
As a progressive Dem, I am deeply pained to consider the real possibility that we may keep Trump for 4 more years: there goes our democracy and any chance to slow climate catastrophe. But that is the reality if we ignore huge swaths of our population with real pain: from racism, gender discrimination, class warfare/neoliberal economics, various addictions, etc. This is not zero sum. This is about suffering caused by power/privilege imbalance. Like this article points out, a huge step is beginning the conversation as caring humans so we can begin to understand each other, build trust and credibility, and work together on solutions.
3
@Bh, Where and how are the white rural poor being "replaced" by people of other ethnicities or cultures?
People of other cultures aren't moving into their communities or taking their jobs.
Aside from changes in technology - for example, coal has been a dying industry for at least 50 years - if there's anyone to blame, it's big corporations - largely owned and led by white men - who have moved their operations to other countries.
But it's certainly more comfortable for the white rural poor to punch down and blame people of color and immigrants, isn't it? The identity that many white rural and working class people feel they're losing is that of white as the majority and top of the totem pole.
Many of these people voted for Trump because he appealed to their racism and/or they believed his ridiculous promises to bring back manufacturing and coal.
3
This is was encouraging in our emerging "cancel culture.
2
I am so grateful to my parents for teaching me that sticks and stones can break my bones but names will never hurt me...and images, words, ideas will never kill me. Our climate is heating up and we are fussing about art? If you don't like it, look away.
4
It was a publicity stunt. And you all took the bait with tackle.
A white supremacist woman who moves to Bed-Sty to a house across the street from the street from a predominantly black school? Sorry, this just does not add up.
Ms. Rose obviously did make a mistake by displaying these drawings on her house. She also took the right step, walked across the street to the school and sincerely apologized. It is not clear why she made this mistake, but somehow, she does not strike me as a raging white supremacist who support lynchings.
The fact that the nonprofit ended up apologizing for something they were completely unrelated to is just bizarre - an example of political correctness going overboard.
I understand that changes in this neighborhood have upended many things and that some of the issues, for example giving more opportunity to black-owned business, should have been handled better. But I challenge all old Bed-Sty residents, regardless of their race and ethnic origin to give their honest opinion - do they prefer newly open businesses (even if most of them are owned by non-blacks) to rampant gang violence that this neighborhood was known for twenty years ago?
9
@zumzar We the old Bed Stuy residents cannot afford the majority of those new businesses.
Bed Stuy will become the new Williamsburg.
1
If we all had someone (or a couple or a family) from a different culture/race/lifestyle/gender ID/geography/socio-economic background over for dinner a couple of times each year much of this would disappear.
Some of our guests or hosts would become friends, not merely acquaintances or colleagues, and we champion our friends, not find ourselves defending insensitive, racist choices.
sad situation. the specific decorations in the photo, well they are weird; and not traditional halloween gallows stuff - where skeletons and ghosts hanging from trees are commonplace, along with dismembered hands and skulls, and most of that has nothiing to do with "lynching." a noose is not always that noose. so now we need to ban the popular word game "hangman", and ban the popular show "the handmaids tale" where images of bodies hung by the neck were always on display, and ban any show that refers to someone hanging themselves, and ban studying the American West or European history where hanging was a common method of execution? or should the conversation be a little bit more nuanced?
the other part of this sad situation is the culture war. as other comments point out, brooklyn didn't always have "black neighborhoods." once a generation it seems that some group pushes some other group out. nobody owns the neighborhood for long, and there is always a lot of resentment about change...
5
I'm surprised at the number of people who are horrified at the images because they were across from a school. Do you remember reading Hansel and Gretel as a child, with pictures of Hansel in a cage, being tested for the plumpness necessary to cook and eat him? Bambi crying over his shot mother lying in the snow? The Little Match Girl freezing to death outside a wealthy family's well-lit window? Many cultures felt that introducing children to stories of death and human cruelty was a necessary part of growing up. We used to, too. I'm quite relieved that we don't do that so much any more -- but I really can't be outraged when I see an example of it!
2
Hanging from a noose is one of the creepiest horror movie staples around. The Revolutionary soldier-ghosts in the Sixth Sense, the nanny in the opening scene of 1976's Omen, and more recently the "bent neck lady" in the Haunting of Hill House.
It also happens to be a horrible symbol of racism.
I refuse to believe that this woman meant to depict the latter and it's ridiculous that she'd be castigated for not thinking through the possible consequences of her Halloween decor. If it opened up a dialog about race in a changing neighborhood, fine. But she didn't need to lose her job and have her reputation destroyed because she chose a classic trope as her Halloween theme. Ridiculous.
9
The issues was raised with the homeowner, the problem was addressed and heartfelt apologies were spread far and wide. Why the further need for attack? Would it be wrong to compare this with ....a lynching?
I'm a Brooklynite, I grew up a handful of blocks from Ms. Rose's house and my aunt lived around the corner from her. I am also unable to afford the neighborhood I grew up in (i.e., gentrified out) and look back on the transplant-free days of the 80s and 90s as the good-old days. No one likes transplants, and transplants with money are the worst. I also remember this area as having such a "rich" culture that you would not want to drive through it at night, and would think twice before walking through it in the day.
I also remember universal condemnation of youths who chased blacks out of their "multigenerational [Italian] neighborhood". But I guess now visceral defense of your immutable ethnic enclave is back in style! Will a hipster Spike Lee arise to tell the story of the marginalized hipster-folk?
10
I absolutely agree that the word "lynch" and the depictions of lynching of Black people are horrifying. But hanging isn't always lynching - it precedes lynching as a part of our history, back to the Salem "witches" and before.
In this case, the depicted characters are not Black, it was Halloween, and context is everything. I commend the woman for taking the display down, but don't believe she deserved what she got.
I think the real issue here is the displacing of less wealthy Black families from Bed-Stuy. It's in the nature of New York neighborhoods to change hands (I lived in Italian Bensonhurst, when my Jewish landlady resented its transition from a Jewish enclave, and until it transitioned again to become nearly entirely Russian and Chinese). But our national worship of wealth and those who have it makes it hard to address the pain of gentrification. I think that's the real racism -- and classism - that's at issue.
4
Art Shack really got allot of attention over this, could it possibly be that the only bad publicity is no publicity ? Did anyone see the fundraising attempts? And now they are in the NYTimes. Mrs Rose is ever so sorry...but is she really?
1
To Annie Correal: Thanks for an enlightening and evocative article.
What struck me in reading your article was the realization that we see the same principles play out everyday in America and around the world. Whether it’s immigrants coming “across the border” or people “taking over the neighborhood”, fear of change by the established generation and unconscious assumptions (insensitivity) on the part of the newcomers inevitably create tensions. In New Jersey there were legal battles over the right of a burgeoning Korean community to put up non English storefront signage.
The ability of our nation to sustain a diverse and integrated multicultural society is being tested every day. The jury is still out.
With respect to Bed-Sty and the Bronx neighborhood where I grew up: wouldn’t it be fascinating if Ms Rose and the neighborhood association found it mutually appealing to construct a plaque on the property calling out its historical significance in the history of Black migration?
Cancel culture at it's worst. Geez...it is getting out of control.
7
Both of the Times' articles on this story are disgraceful. The story here is that a woman was harassed by an angry (dare I say) lynch mob on social media to the point she was forced to resign from her job. Go read the Facebook posts - even this didn't satisfy the hateful "protestors."
A reasonable person would not jump to the assumption the Halloween window display was a depiction or or even allusion to the lynching of African Americans. The hair is red and purple. The paper brown because it is recycled. Even so, the woman immediately apologized and took down the display, then went to the school and explained the mistake. But this did not satiate the hateful, grievance-seeking mob.
So what's the real story here? It's not, as the headline would suggest, that a mistake created a healthy discussion about race within the community. That isn't what happened. The story is of a woman harassed by a social media mob subscribing to an increasingly prevalent identity culture, one defined by self-righteousness and vindictiveness more than the desire to actually tackle social injustice.
15
@Mike Could not agree more.
6
@Mike Once again, that's kind of the insensitive use of "lynch" that's discussed here. She was not harassed by a lynch mob.
2
When I moved to this country in 1982 I didn't know the history. I'm not from here. I had to learn it the hard way. She did too. Now she's being harangued.
6
Mob mentality, self-righteuosness, Taking justice into its own hands.
Sounds familiar.
11
I don't know what horror movie inspired these figures. But they do look like black children to me. Ms. Rose chose to use brown craft paper to make them - why? And why depict children hanging from nooses - right across the street from a school?!?
I don't see why it's too much to ask that someone THINK first and consider your neighbors.
Apparently, too, gruesome Halloween decorations have become popular in recent years - with sometimes realistic figures hanging from nooses, or beheaded, or covered with blood. There's something very sick about a society that celebrates horrific violence this way.
I'm glad that Ms. Rose took down the display and apologized - and that the community met peacefully to address not just this incident but the many wrought issues of gentrification.
1
Since the movie Annabelle is described on IMDB as about "terrifying supernatural occurrences involving a vintage doll," then I guess there were dolls in her windows with nooses, not people. "Nothing needs reforming so much," as Mr. Twain pointed out, "as other people's habits."
5
Embedded in this story is a tale of how difficult it is for African American's to transmit wealth to the next generation. There are a number of factors at work, but incomplete legacy planning is part of the picture. A situation that results in the sale of real estate will have this effect, i.e., dissapation of accumulated wealth. Given the difficulty is accumulating wealth in the first instance, this "sub-optimal" result is far too common.
55
@Point of Order This is not a problem only of African Americans at this point. Have you missed discussions of wealth disparity and inequality. It is a frightening problem here and in other nations. Check the recent NYT article highlighting the American middle class declining income and status.
20
@Point of Order inequity in wealth and inheritance, yes. But it should not be out on individual black shoulders. The racial difference in wealth was deliberate and planned: red lining, GI bill, refusal of mortgages to AfAm, ag and domestic workers left out of social security and much more. It is not an accident and not the fault of black families.
20
@Point of Order A house is the largest asset for most Americans. Its conversion into cash isn't "dissipation." It's Grandma deciding she could live better herself with the money rather than the house. The kids might resent that out of their own self-interest, but in 2019 the scenario is too common to be held up as an example of structural racial bias. It happens everywhere.
8
She made a gigantic mistake. She was called out on it, took the decorations down, issued sincere apologies, and surely won't do this again. Go on, "cancel" her. It's what everyone's doing nowadays anyway.
6
Gray area. NOW she's mortified, but didn't imagine the implications of her decorations possibly because: her story is true and she meant no harm, OR she is so arrogant that she never imagined such a backlash. Some might say, if her intentions were bad, why would she choose to live in a Black neighborhood then? Ha. Never underestimate the allure of cheaper real estate. I'm cynical with a streak of fairness. The reaction of her neighbors? Well, reactionary in these sensitive times PLUS the result of previous hand-wringing over gentrification. Case solved, except whether to cancel her. LOL
None of us know Ms. Rose personally so cannot say whether she did this with malice in her heart or just made a stupid error. Some people seem to think the former, that she is some awful, evil racist and that she much be punished. Ok, she apologized, resigned, what's left? Blaming her former employee and coworkers seems either vindictive or a great excuse for people to bring up aggravations they already had with supposed gentrifiers. I find Mr. Foy's comments rather egregious, both my parents grew up in neighborhoods in the Bronx that were mostly Irish, Italian, Jewish that are now almost entirely African American and little evidence this has been for the better as the high schools they went to, Evander Childs and Columbus, are now ranked in the top worst schools in the city. Yes, not all change is good for everybody, but change is a constant whether you like it or not. No one "owns" any neighborhood indefinitely.
7
I grew up in one of those neighborhoods in the Bronx. Those Italian and Irish families were not displaced by rising rents and real estate prices - they decided not to stay. I remember some parts of those neighborhoods as “no go” zones where black kids would get beaten up and chased out, so I think racism played some role in many families deciding they did not want to live in an integrated community and abandoning them for more homogenous areas. Why were those schools allowed to become awful? Were they stripped of resources? Did the city also abandon them? Those are questions worth exploring.
I’ve also lived in black Brooklyn neighborhoods that were or are becoming gentrified. Those communities have been accepting of newcomers; I don’t see the same level of hostility directed at newcomers as I experienced in the Bronx. We were grateful, not imperious, for the opportunity to improve our housing.
2
I saw the same high handed attitude some gentrifiers have while living in rural New Mexico. The Hispanic farmers were very angry with the anglo interlopers buying their land. It takes care, time, and patience to become a neighbor when you are the outsider. Fortunately several different cultures and ethnicities live in New Mexico and somehow ultimately manage but one must be sensitive when you are moving into another persons community.
3
Sadly this is about 100x greater protest turnout when people of color are actually being murdered in the neighborhood.
6
How did Halloween ever get associated with nooses and hanging to begin with? None of this would have occurred had the owner not been so influenced by the film Anabelle, which she claimed was her source. A film written, directed and produced by men, which features two suicides by women, and physical attacks on a pregnant woman and a woman with a baby. We should not ignore the source - it's a good reminder that it's rarely just about one ism.
3
"some newcomers to this part of Brooklyn have behaved not as if they are adding to an already-rich culture, but have supplanted it, as if there had been nothing there before at all."
Anyone with roots in coastal Maine will recognize this attitude in people who come here from away. I guess we can be grateful depictions of nooses are not generally involved.
4
She displayed images of hanging children Across the Street from an Elementary School, in a high foot traffic area. What is wrong with her????
5
When I was a kid some 50 years ago one of my favorite costume was a "bum". I didn't buy the particulars because it was an easy costume to assemble from things at home. I would find a pair of old pants and shirt that were torn and look disheveled and a pair of worn shoes. And for some reason I used charcoal to blacken my face. The charcoal wasn't meant to infer any racial animus. Rather it was to imply that I was simply "dirty".
Whether my parents realized it or not (I'll never know), and I certainly did not, but what I was mocking was basically being a "homeless person". I don't know the impetus for my choice as a "bum" (perhaps it came from the "hobo" clown Emmet Kelly) it was certainly offensive, and perhaps my parents should've known better, but there was outright animus behind it. If we were guilty of anything it was not being sensitive enough.
3
As a Brit - we have problems of ethnic & indigenous integration too (if I can put it like that?) - but nothing quite like the implied separation between blacks & whites in this incident - but I'm not surprised by it.
In 1995 I spent 2yrs working in NC & from the separation of outlooks - as this article continues to show - hasn't diminished.
I remember going to a RC church inauguration(new organ) & a full to bursting congregation: ALL were white (apart from an Asian-Indian couple). A black gospel choir from up the road, came to sing a gospel song & then departed! I spoke to 'my' minister (Methodists; we had been invited to the inauguration); she was v. embarrassed by this unspoken segregation.
Going to a MickeyD's in Durham, our 2 children(7 & 6) played on the climbing frames happily with the black children; their mums told us that we were the first white people they'd spoken to for over a year!
I worked as a consultant in Cary for a software company - it had 2 black people (as far as I could see) working there. This was the only time I think, when black & white communities came together (for work).
In the UK, I think we are a more integrated society - where ethnic groups DO socialise more, but even then, sometimes divides inevitably become apparent - but it is not as large as this article demonstrates.
And a name fascinates me: Stuyvescent? It sounds like a tobacco magnate (supremacist?) who profited from the anti-trust breakup of the Duke monopoly after the Civil War?
2
The hanging of children, any child, across from a school is deeply disturbing, not amusing and as a white parent I would think twice about letting my child trick or treat at such a residence. The moral compass is so off in this story, I sense Ms. Rose was unhappy living across from a school?
5
I have folks living in Bed-Sty, their street is both old residents and (diverse) newcomers. I dog sit sometimes, take the dog to a lovely park close by, see/meet in the late mornings during the week mainly black folk from the neighborhood, in late afternoons/evenings newcomers after work. A haven for walking dogs, but also a community place for the blacks and all, young kids with heir mothers, fathers; clusters of older men and women, possibly retired people who talk/enjoy a restful time. The "special" folks: the older black gentleman teaching a teenager patiently basics of martial arts; some use the metal banister long the paths to do exercises, bending backwards and up again, many times. The chess players; the grass smokers; on a free table, the young talented reggae dancer to the song/beat from a boombox and the admiring family sitting nearby and clapping. The guy on a bicycle racing skillfully avoiding anyone on the pretty broad path. The dinner eating older man celebrating his take-out like a maitre d'. And then the other dog walkers/owners. And you get into dog talk, easily. The black nurse and her small white fluff in a basket. She wants to know what this cute black thing is? A Tibetan terrier, she's friendly. Few days later chance meeting with the nurse on a street. Long day's work; we talk, she, Sabrina, gets my name, but her fluff is waiting for her. Bed-Sty, the park as meeting place: togetherness & community; total end of noose-time & those images, please!
2
"Mr. Foy said, some newcomers to this part of Brooklyn have behaved not as if they are adding to an already-rich culture, but have supplanted it. . . ."
This sounds a WHOLE lot like a white nationalist racist lamenting the arrival in his community by people of color.
So does this:
'Ms. James said: “There are people in this community, primarily of African ancestry, who feel a sense of loss. They don’t know this community anymore.”'
And this:
". . . you’re subject to walking into a bar in the neighborhood that was yours and being looked at like you don’t belong there.”
And this, too:
“Bed-Stuy is a multigenerational black neighborhood,” she said. “People imagine they’re in a new place without understanding they’re in a legacy place.”
I guess we all have trouble dealing with changes that upset our settled patterns of life.
7
Social Justice Warriors are like the Red Guards during China’s Cultural Revolution.
Not enough for this woman to be punished for her mistake but her former employer too?
6
Don't get me wrong. I hate racism in all of its forms. I believe in reincarnation and feel so strongly that I was a black person in another lifetime because watching a film about slavery, reading books about it, or hearing about unlawful assaults against African Americans hurts me on a visceral level. As a child of immigrant Jewish parents, I know only too well what prejudice is. I've heard many stories of affliction. One needs to live life and be "aware". But why must we 'assault' people who simply and innocently may not possess awareness? It's getting so that we cannot even wink at another person for fear that they may have a glass eye. But more than this I find it truly amazing how people can allow themselves to get SO angry and to create such a fuss about what amounts to senseless and stupid Halloween decorations that perhaps were put up without thought, yes.. but have absolutely no problem ignoring homeless people, for example, who have no where to live, nothing to eat and probably need mental help and some compassion. If only we could direct our anger and our energy towards something that really and truly matters to our society. Why is it that we choose to focus on what is offensive rather than what we can do to help each other? We all want to be good, but instead we are just complaining. That, to me is the worst ignorance.
5
She made a mistake. She apologized. She took the offensive images down. To scapegoat this woman for all racism is absurd. To harass her at her home is repugnant. As someone else said - it is time to take a chill pill.
16
I was once on an international airline and was jarred by a remix of Strange Fruit on a "soothing" playlist. It seems foreigners are more ignorant of the US history of racism than we can really imagine. However, since Ms. Rose had been in the US for years, I'm surprised she wasn't more aware.
How educated are you about the history of racism in other countries? Could you speak with authority to the issues between Hindus and Muslims in India? Between between Croats and Serbs in the former Yugoslavia? Between Malays and Han Chinese in Singapore? The reduction of all the world’s problems to what happens in the US is a ridiculous proposition.
4
Nooses have nothing to do with race.
They are about capital punishment, and suicide.
This was in terrible taste (are most of the morbid death-images of Haloween), but no worse than a San Diego museum that displayed a full-size (non-operable, one assumes) guillotine.
3
It's a real stretch to take that display as a racist insult. Considering all the real blatant forms of racism everywhere around us, I consider this protest to be a real scam perpetrated by hustlers. Obviously the real anger is over white gentrification. That indeed is plenty reason to fight for fair housing for all. Those who want to protest racism can march over to the nearest police station or jail and find plenty of real reasons to protest. Poor woman.
8
When whites do not move into historically black neighborhoods, that is apartheid and segregation.
When whites moved into historical black neighborhoods, according to this article, that is "white supremacy."
With this mindset, there can never be any meaningful dialogue.
7
Gentrification issues are now a part of every American city/town/space. I'm considering creating some type of "Welcome to your new Historically Black Neighborhood" package to be given out to every new resident (no matter their race.) It could introduce or remind the newcomers of the history of their new neighborhood, and hopefully remind the new people that they are not moving into a vacuum. I've discussed it w/ some, but every article like this reminds me to get going much more seriously on this thing.
1
All our Brooklyn "historically black neighborhoods" were white when I was a kid.
And without graffiti or litter.
7
What she put up was unquestionably bad, but... she apologized and gave an explanation, and seems sincerely sorry for it. What's the point in being cynical? And it makes no sense to being her employer into it because they literally had nothing to do with the incident. The dad, and all the other protestors, could've had a conversation about race from the start. But they were too afraid and/or cowardly to do that and chose to be outraged instead of actually trying to resolve the situation.
7
From most bad things comes something good. Neighbors who may never have previously spoken and listened to one another got the chance to do so. There were two valid takeaways here.
1. White people moving into neighborhoods of color have to be sensitive to those who have lived there previously.
2. If we are to truly integrate as a nation, neighborhoods need to integrate.
5
I am 75. I was raised for the first 12 years of my life in bed sty. What people don’t realize that during that time it was a mixed neighborhood. We lived in harmony. Some of my best memories of my life are from that time in my life. Blacks, from the south, began moving in. The neighborhood began to change. Black and white began moving out, and into a safer neighborhood, which was Bushwick. We all have stories that make us uncomfortable. We have to learn to educate, and not hate. Occasionally it’s the simplest explanation that is the honest one, and not more than that!
9
My own hometown, Lewiston, Maine, has been a predominantly Franco-American city since about 1900. About 60% of the population is currently descended from francophone Canadian immigrants. In the last 15 years, Somali immigrants have come and now constitute 5-10% of the population. The neighborhoods where my great-grandparents, my grandparents and my parents lived are now inhabited by Somalis. I feel the loss the people in the neighborhood in this story are experiencing. It is the same loss I am experiencing as I see my Franco town become a more "American" town. It's not easy but it has to be accepted. Somalis are changing us and they are bringing a lot to us.Somalis are now on the school board, the city council and have opened many businesses. Change is always a loss and a gain.
10
When i was a graduate student long ago, living in a row house (near Schenley Park, Pittsburgh) above my wise Jewish landlady and her lovely husband, both in their 70s, she used to complain to me in the most serious and indignant tone, "Why had God not created humans in just one variety? It had made us suffered so gravely and unnecessarily!!."
I missed her voice.
4
When I was young the television was full of horrific pictures including lynched black men hanging from a tree. We saw the horrors of war close up and the race riots and other protests and Kent State with the bodies on the ground. Those terrible pictures made a point and they also created support for change. It is easy to find someone who takes offence, some people will not eat baking with vanilla in it because vanilla often is alcoholic. I understand why people find those cutouts offensive but there are many who find Halloween wrong and want it banned. What happened to tolerance and debate and openness, we seem to live in a society of extremism with heightened sensitivities with some being deemed more righteous than others.
7
Daniela Rose seems to be the victim as she's the one who made the mistake and paid for it profoundly. I was once a white-skinned teenage American immigrant and my clueless parents made me take a public bus to a private girls school through the black section of town in my school uniform. I got the full treatment - eventually the black bus drivers began to feel sorry for me and told me I should sit next to the driver where I got some protection. I never told my parents and survived my senior year. This happened sixty years ago but I've never forgotten the hate.
18
Pushing the woman's employer into being at the heart of this--when the company had nothing to do with it--reminds me of the hustlers in Tom Wolfe's Radical Chic and Mau-Mauing the Flak Catchers.
But I understand where it's coming from, the gentrification has changed so much and people want outlets to vent their frustration. It's obvious that the company was pressured to become involved, but there's nothing to indicate that they caused any problems or that they should have been at the center. This has a whiff of "do as we say or we will put you out of business," and that is unfortunate.
Some other community institution--more directly involved in the matter--should have been called upon to lend support.
12
What an inspiring story, Annie.
Did Ms. Rose attend the meeting? It could have been stressful to everyone, especially herself, to attend. Local resident and NY attorney general Letitia James attended. Did she reach out to Ms. Rose to inform her that she would attend this community meeting? Ms. James' presence might have encouraged Ms. Rose to attend, if she had had reservations about it. Perhaps Artshack's organizers wanted to hear from the community in a way that gave each attendee a chance to express their shock, immense hurt, grief, fear, & other profound feelings of their families being targeted, without the distraction of having Ms. Rose present. Whatever the arrangement was, Artshack staff did a good job of supporting their community by providing residents with timely access to their studio - an informal space in which to gather. Being able to share their problem face-to-face with their neighbors revealed an underlying community ethos: the complexity of the problem was clearly established, and this community owned it. A number of specific actions were identified to address grievances, to be carried out by specific persons and local institutions.
Ms. Rose had previously gone to the local public school to apologize for her insensitive Halloween display. Perhaps she can participate in one of the approved conciliatory tasks: taking and then educating new white-owned businesses in racial biasing. This would be a fine example of restorative justice in action.
3
I don't believe Ms Rose's story about the images being inspired by "Annabelle," because the doll(s) in that movie bore no resemblance whatsoever to the images hanging in her window and there were no nooses in the movie either. The "Annabelle" doll is terrifying on its own and requires no adaptation or inspiration for use on Halloween or other scary times.
I have no sympathy for Ms Rose at all because she didn't have to lie, I'm surprised she didn't say she had black friends. There really is no way to explain away or apologize for this sort of thing. Ignorance is not a defense because people know what the deal is regardless of where they are from. Hanging nooses and wearing blackface clarify who a person is and what he/she believes and that is all there is to it.
10
Having loved small town life, where joining the local service and improvement organizations was an assumed responsibility (along with learning local history turn left where there used to be a bank), I am sad that folks think of their houses as personal islands. A house is a part of the interdependent web of community, at least that's my take on it.
Capitalism says a house is worth what you can sell it for.
I say it's worth the community you can create with it.
6
These Halloween displays with nooses should stop. Now!
My across-the-street neighbor used to hang a skeleton in a tree (along with many other displays) every year. In backing out of my driveway I was confronted every time with a hanging in my rear view. The tree came down a few years ago and thankfully I don’t have to see that anymore.
I am white. I responded viscerally every time I saw this. I can’t even imagine how distressing this would be for someone whose family and friends were subject to the terror of lynching.
Just stop using noose displays!
11
If this display was put up during a time outside of Halloween, I could understand the anger. However, Halloween decorations go beyond black cats, pumpkins and witches. Frightful scenes with hanging ghouls, bloody murder scenes, etc have become popular. I think people are too quick to become offended and condemn others. The black communities should be more concerned about the bigger issues that their communities face.
16
apart from the obvious racism in what this woman did, this article inadvertently hits on an inherent contradiction in what liberals want on many matters including this one. they want increased diversity and bemoan "segregation" of the black community in urban centers. then when the diversity arrives they complain about "gentrification". im quite sure nothing will be satisfactory.
4
Wrong. Black people have never clamored to live next to or among white people. The struggle has always been for equal access to and quality of resources in our communities. Unfortunately, in a deeply racist society such as America, this has and continues to only be possible with the presence of white faces and bodies.
2
In Germany it's "ok" for a guy to urinate in public provided his back is turned.. Are concerned US citizens rushing to Berlin to condemn and complain about their social and health degradation? But a legal German immigrant automatically must "fall in" to liberal progression ... but an illegal immigrant Central American family gets a free pass .. as well as free education and healthcare.
6
I think she doth protest too much. And her protestations of "cluelessness" don't wash. Anyone who doesn't live in a hole would know the dreadful history of slavery and the trials of black people in America. They would know about the lynchings. And in a black neighborhood?? Come on...
106
@Susan Christ was crucified should we ban crosses. do you know the horrible history of religious repression and if you do not it is no excuse
11
@Susan Should she then be lynched? How about open dialogue? How about giving the benefit of the doubt especially due to the fact of her response when confronted? I’m not negating the fact that it is horrible. Believe it or not some people are clueless.
30
The consequences of her mistake were far worse and far more concerning. Liberals want to create a totalitarian state with thought police who have the right to “cancel” anyone who commits a thought crime and send them and their associates (for good measure) to a virtual gulag. This is not how you accomplish racial healing.
33
I'm white and I take offense. I try to not offend back, two wrongs don't make a right. And I recite the serenity prayer. I'm restoring a building in a tiny North Carolina town and I speak to pretty much everyone I meet. Most of the folks long there know me by name and deed, I keep my side of the street clean in a literal sense, clean up after others every time I am there. I am a racial minority there and know that. Some people find offense that I am there, others enjoy my presence. Those who find offense I worry none about, the trash I've picked up they dropped or walked by for weeks.
What I see no matter how people are painted is the content of their character. Like the way I look after the ground when I'm there, I try to keep my mind and my attitude the same.
The history there goes deep too, white and black. It was the second busiest port in North Carolina in the 1700's and was a way point for the underground railroad in the 1800's. Now it is a withering company town.
I wish for any place that all there respect and regard the history that makes it a place, maybe then the locals would love it more and the folks from away moving there could tread in a more loving way.
What makes this country the place people want to live in is the ability to come together and find peace with one another and thrive, like the neighborhood the writer describes.
2
I live in Brooklyn and while I didn't see it in person, so the justified uproar form the community in which she decided to put up her grotesque "decorations"....
I am equally concerned that she thought it was "funny, artistic, spirited" to put up decorations of dead children hanging by nooses?!?! I think she's got deeper issues....
What happened to a scarrrrryyyy witch or a pumpkin for Halloween decor?
110
@BK Christie A scary witch perpetuates the idea that among us live marginalized, malevolent old women who can secretly harm the innocent. The witch burnings of the early modern era in Europe, in which tens of thousands were murdered (overwhelmingly women and girls), was no less a crime against humanity than slavery or the Holocaust. If you’re going to demand sensitivity to nooses, then you should likewise be aware of similar crimes.
27
@Lawyermom, the difference is, no one is accusing women of being malevolent witches and burning them at the stake - not for hundreds of years. (At least, not in the developed world)
The Holocaust and lynchings took place much more recently - within the lifetimes of many living today - and there is still rampant racism and a widespread resurgence of anti-Semitism today.
Most people today see Halloween witches as fictional characters - along with ghosts, vampires, and zombies. None of whom are real humans who are members of actual persecuted minorities.
PS: Most Halloween witches are green and resemble the "wicked witch" in The Wizard of Oz - again, not a representation of actual persons, past or present.
8
@doy1 My best friend was a witch, a practicing Wiccan. There was no harm in her at all. However, we lived in the narrow-minded South, and there were rumors around town that suggested she did those classic witchy things, like casting spells to hurt people. It was painful after her death to have old friends asking me about those rumors - all of them good evangelicals, and scared to death of her. Don't assume that the Halloween witches are fictional characters in the minds of everyone. Women were burned at the stake in this country during the same time that black people were enslaved.
11
I can hardly think of any symbol that might not have multiple meanings or implications. For example, a 'Red (plastic) Cup, if used in a drawing, painting, sculpture, etc., in the vicinity of the University of Mississippi would reference football games, the Grove (main tailgating area), and the multitudes of drunk college students, townspeople, etc., who participate in it. In fact, I had submitted 'Red Cup' as suggestion for a new mascot when UM/Ole Miss got rid of its controversial Col. Reb mascot.
Even the swastika has a symbolic meaning that is far, far older and hugely *positive* than the one we 'westerners' associate with a bunch of insane, discriminatory, genocidal-maniac Germans, aka Nazis. Yet, put a swastika on a piece of clothing or in a work of art with the intent of symbolizing peace and good fortune, and one will be battered to the ground by those who see nothing but Nazi hatred.
And those two points of view are *both* legitimate in relation to the swastika. Yet, who gets to ban it? Use it? It comes down to intent, which means that it is always better to query and have a conversation than to do otherwise.
I applaud the "substantive dialogue" that was said in this article to occur. But trying to hold an employer responsible for the behavior of an employee simply makes no sense. Imagine if society decided that parents were responsible (financially, legally, etc.) for their children regardless of that child's age. Ready to pay for your 40-yr old's sins?
7
I find it ironic and sad that the very descendants of people whose white flight populated the suburbs are now integrating neighborhoods their parents abandoned. Then, it was unwanted ethnic minorities trashing good, upstanding white Protestant communities. Now gentrification has created in these urban neighborhoods of “outcasts” (aka ghettos) residents who want the wealthier (aka white) interlopers out. It’s a tangle of racism and money, and I don’t know how to slice through this Gordian Knot.
2
Not "unwanted." Jews in particular with their "I was a stranger in a strange land" ethos did not at all flee from their old neighbors -- until their longtime homes were made impossible due to drugs, nocturnal mayhem, burglaries, assaults, and occasionally murders.
Spouse's cousin's husband, a dentist, was murdered, most likely by someone looking for "drugs," the cops said. In a dentist's office? A dentist who let his poorer patients pay in interest-free installments?
9
@B. - I disagree. In Jewish Brownsville, for one example, black people didn’t move into occupied apartments and force Jews out (obviously). In the late 1950s/early 1960s, almost all of Brownsville was Jewish. As black peoples and Puerto Ricans started moving in, Jews began to get scared and move out. Because most Jews there rented rather than owned houses, it was easier to find apartments in other neighborhoods. I speak from my experience as a Jewish kid in Brownsville in the 1950s. “Di andere” (“the other,” in Yiddish) was said by those adults around me about non-whites moving in. Even my very liberal mother said it sometimes (well, she was spat upon on the street by a young black girl who didn’t know her). It’s very complicated, of course.
2
There is no mention of why she wanted to hang nooses in her window. The deep, underlying reasons driving people to hang nooses or wear black face at Halloween are never fully addressed. They get called out and possibly shut down but their inner motives are never fully revealed. She refused to be interviewed for this article so yet again, we can only imagine what drove her.
2
@Gabrielle , read the article again. She was specifically using imagery from a popular horror movie about a haunted doll.
4
Outside of America there are no Anglo nor Latino human being persons.
Having an English and Spanish language and cultural heritage has nothing to do with color aka race or national origin.
Ted Cruz is as white as Mike Pence.
David Ortiz is blacker than Barack Obama.
There is only one biological DNA genetic evolutionary fit human race species that began in Africa 300. 000 years ago.
What we call race aka color is an evolutionary fit human pigmented response to varying levels of solar radiation at different altitudes and latitudes primarily related to producing Vitamin D and protecting genes from damaging mutations in ecologically isolated human populations over time and space.
What we call race aka ethnicity aka national origin is an evil malign socioeconomic ,political, educational, demographic historical myth meant to legally and morally justify humanity denying black African American enslavement and separate and unequal black African American Jim Crow.
See ' The Race Myth : Why We Pretend That Race Exists in America' Joseph L. Graves; ' Watson Decoded' American Masters PBS, ' Dog-Whistle Politics: How Coded Racial Appeals Reinvented Racism and Wrecked the Middle Class' Ian Haney Lopez
2
1. Great free advertising for Artshack. 2. Just wondering: are hoodies an oblique reference to nooses? Culture is so full of secret codings (which you're crazy if you believe in and irresponsible if you don't), so essentially we're expected to not do anything without permission because we don't know what anything means. Maybe the point is to freeze everybody in fear, but then again maybe the point is that this parallels how we can't see inside other people's minds, see what mental effect (aka meaning) we are having, so we should always walk on eggshells with other human beings. But the noose thing isn't secret, it has been well publicized. The lady may be from Germany, but then again maybe she was selected by somebody to do this for them precisely because she has an excuse.
1
Really strange - I think that the locals really lost it. Racism or constantly turning everything into racism is probably eating up a lot of positive energies.
16
Those images are horrible! I am glad the homeowner apologized for displaying them.
6
We have now seen it played out over and over , liberals offended apologize not enough ..you must lose your Job and pay....and the bottom line here is this is NOT a illegal activity but one that is done in horror movies All the Time/ which this person was inspired to do so for that is the nature of Halloween. But the radical left ...just dying to be offended jump all over this with Big Media/Brother on the Hot line and thus this so called hurt gets reinforced for future Witch Hunts!
7
How old was this person when she moved from Germany. Was she a student in an American public school system. It’s hard to say, that living in an historically black neighborhood you’re totally unaware of that part of black culture. Either totally ignorant or incredibly arrogant. Moving into gentrifying neighborhood with little interest in the people you’re replacing is a common anglo thread. Maybe she saw this as the motivation to start a must needed conversation. “The end justifies the means” ?
28
@Ron Moore You say that, "Moving into gentrifying neighborhood with little interest in the people you’re replacing is a common anglo thread." But you do realize that Bed Stuy wasn't originally a black neighborhood? How much do you think the average black resident of Bed Stuy knows about the Dutch settlers who first build NYC and all its neighborhoods?
No racial group owns a neighborhood or has the right to enforce its culture on new residents - whether that's white people moving into gentrifying minority neighborhoods or minorities trying moving into suburban white neighborhoods.
Of course the decorations were in terrible taste and this woman should have expected the backlash she deservedly got, but all of this whining about gentrification is nonsense. The people of Bed Stuy should be rejoicing about the benefits they're no doubt reaping now from that most sacred of liberal values - diversity and integration!!!
37
@Jon P
Gentrification is happening in Bed-Sty. Capital flows in, businesses locate, rents increase, then poor people have to move or become homeless. We always assume that growth is good. It's actually good for some, but good doesn't seem to flow to the less fortunate.
The decorations were not "terrible taste". They show a sickening insensitivity--it's not OK.
13
@Jon P The Dutch settlers you refer to lived hundreds of years ago. The black people of Bed-Stuy are alive today, many of their families have lived in Bed-Stuy for multiple generations - and many are old enough to remember lynchings - which weren't so long ago.
Thousands of people have been displaced and become homeless due to gentrification - they are not benefiting from it.
Diversity and integration are great. But to make that work requires respect and consideration - especially when one group has been and continues to be disadvantaged and have less power and money than the other.
11
Bed Stuy is a historically white neighborhood. Blacks were themselves a wave of interlopers beginning in the mid 1930s. That's the legacy of the place. It's not a historically black neighborhood. It's a historic neighborhood that blacks at one time decided to gravitate to, but that doesn't make it "their" neighborhood anymore than it belonged to the whites who first settled there.
No one race owns a neighborhood and perhaps if the black residents of Bed Stuy are so upset on seeing faces that don't look like theirs in the neighborhood, then they need to confront their own prejudices and learn to appreciate diversity.
25
Do we really want any Halloween decorations involving a noose? Not only it’s insensitive to African Americans but do you want to give kids any ideas?
6
The mindlessness of the "protesters" is well illustrated by the fact that they targeted a pottery studio that had nothing to do with the display.
16
Who would not know that a noose and lynching theme is not a decent Halloween decoration? C'mon.
People are commenting, blaming politically correctness and that's just so wrong.
What if your ancestors had been kidnapped from their homes and families, brought to an alien land and sold into slavery, then eventually "freed" into the worst poverty and starvation possible, then denied the right to use the same bathrooms, hotels, schools, hospitals etc as white people and then subjected to violence and accused of crimes they did not commit, sent to prisons and chain gangs to work off their sentences,
looked upon as less than human, paid way less than whites, and then lynched for the color of their skin...and you think the people overreacted because of the lynching decorations with brown skinned figures? Overreacting?
I don't think so. Think about it.
Look what African Americans have been forced to deal with and still are.
Police brutality: they are constant targets of police violence every day. A racist president who encourages white supremacy.
If I were an African American parent I would be frozen with fear for my kids every day.
Overreacting?
No way.
Those decorations were horrible. Good call on getting them down quickly.
6
This is bullying, plain and simple. The mob wanted to hurt others for pleasure. The use of kraft paper for the Annabelle movie cutouts was just an excuse. Once they had destroyed the initial victim, they just moved on to bully an uninvolved party, Artshack.
10
Hmmm... so using an image the represents the systematic killing of people solely based on the color of their skin isn’t bullying?
4
It wasn’t done as a reference to lynching. It was done as a reference to a horror movie. Most people don’t live their lives trying to decode every possible offensive meaning to their actions. Admittedly, she should have realized the implications of the nooses, but the over-reaction by the community far exceeded her offense, if any, in wrongness.
8
Halloween is not a holiday celebrating murder and violent crime. The lynching decorations notwithstanding.
1
The only thing I don’t like in this whole situation is that after she had apologized and realized her mistake, she was shunned away and even felt the pressure to resign from the nonprofit.
What’s sad is this woman had made a mistake, an honest one, and everyone was allowed to move forward and open needed dialogue while she was left behind. I didn’t even see any mention of her being at the meeting after all of this.
How people can grow if we don’t give them the chance, even when they don’t realize at first the mistake they made? It’s bittersweet that progress was made for the community, and the person who was in the center of it is now in obscurity with no chance for redemption.
30
Part of this situation reminds me of my ex. Once a transgression was pointed out, you could sincerely apologize and indicate you’ve learned from it, and go on from there. But no. The response to the apology is escalated anger and “You should have known better.”
My response in return? Anger and frustration that I may as well not apologize in the future as that gets me in further trouble. I’m certainly glad to be free of that toxic environment.
I see some parallels in modern American culture. It’s not healthy, and ultimately self defeating for everyone.
25
People were perfectly in the right to be angry about the decorations, despite the fact that Ms. Rose is from another country and perhaps didn't understand the cultural context.
This is more of an article on Cancel Culture and internet outrage than anything else. Accept the apology and corrective action, and move on. Destroying someone's livelihood and protesting a small business that had nothing to do with this is a bridge too far.
58
Thinking a noose would be a cute Halloween decoration is to be so full of yourself that you’re blinded by the brilliance of your idea. And, it’s just dumb.
Moving into a community and ignoring your affect on that community is to be so full of yourself that you’re blinded by your beaming self importance. And, it’s just dumb.
At least a dialogue has been started to get the new folks to dim the light a bit.
4
No tribe forever entitled regarding perpetual living space.
7
Every Neighborhood in America has an undercurrent of culture history and sensibilities.
You feel it in Asian Communities
You certainly feel it in Jewish Communities
Even in White Communities-- You will learn of the differences between a Community built on Norwegian emigres versus that of one built on Swedish roots. Irish vs Italian.
Each and every one has their own little ways and history, Do's and Don'ts.
But America INSISTS on telling the Black Community-- Oh Why Don't you 'Get over it'.
Oh-- That's all 'ancient' history...
Oh-- It was just a joke...
Oh-- Why are you upset? They didn't mean any harm...
Our reaction to this is because of this unconscious INSISTENCE that our group, OUR Part of America...is supposed to 'Get over it' and just bury the hatchet and let the rest of you pretend that Our Racist Past was just ...a Minor Hiccup that we got over and 'Everything is Better Now!'
Black Residents in a Southern Town KNOW better than to string up a Confederate Soldier dummy in a Noose from the front yard tree as part of their Halloween decorations...
And we all know what hullaballoo erupts if anyone so much as TOUCHES a Confederate Statue...
...Suddenly THAT History 'Matters'...
...Suddenly THOSE Sensitivities Matter...
Look...MY Neighborhood is also changing. White people are moving in. No problem with that.
But MY Sensibilities were here First.
Heed them and Respect them and we'll get along just fine.
15
No one is telling black people to get over it. The black people in this story were vicious and vindictive and wanted to utterly destroy someone who made a mistake and apologized for it.
4
Money talks, and it has always talked: it transforms, destroys, builds, and modifies whatever it might touch.
Those with more of it tend to benefit, and those without it don't.
This is the way it has been since every civilization began, and it will be the way it is until every civilization ceases to exist.
2
I love Halloween, which I was raised to believe, is supposed to be a scary time, the end of the Harvest and followed by a day for All Saints. I am not religious at all, I’ve never attended any church group ever or observation for the Saints Day. Years ago, I decorated my house with black lights and I dressed up as a mad scientist complete with cauliflower “brains” in glass jars etc. I had a local group of religious ladies come by, and protest that my house was too scary, and that my “lab” was too realistic for kids. And how ashamed I should be to traumatize them like that for candy. I replied that Halloween is supposed to be scary, and the scariest tropes are the best and in keeping with the holiday.
Nooses, I would imagine, would be the most fearful symbol for a large part of society, and terribly frightening for real. Some things really are too serious to make fun of.
While I completely understand this woman’s confusion as a newcomer, I am surprised she didn’t realize that this would be offensive. Just the creepy dolls are enough to be scary! Glad she did the right thing by her apology, sad she lost her job over it. In my own case, I suggested that perhaps their church would be better off having a Harvest Fun type gathering, than protesting people trying to participate at their own homes.
4
@Suzanne , I've lived abroad three times, 2 1/2, 12 and 4 year stints and some how managed not to inflame the locals. There's something far darker going on in this woman's life? I think perhaps she is less than thrilled living directly across from a busy school. Seems a passive aggressive approach warning.
2
The real story here is that the NYT actually follows up on stories like this where other publications talk about the hyped up story while it’s a hot topic but never go back to find out what happened in the aftermath, which is often where the most interesting and important events take place. Thank you for the follow up story NYT.
8
This is a very strange piece of reporting.
I actually had to do a word search after reading it to confirm that Daniela Rose simply disappears from the article, right after the fact that she's originally from Germany is "dismissed." What?
Then, we learn all about the tortured souls at Artshack, who "have to answer for" decorations they "had absolutely nothing to do with." What?
I feel incredible bitterness. I would sum this up as: native black community angered by the oblivious actions of a white immigrant, directs anger toward a white community business, that business responds with the "sad face" emoji, everyone feels catharsis, NYT reports, and gentrification continues completely unabated.
A sad state of affairs in Brooklyn, certainly, but at NYT as well.
23
WWOD?
What would Obama do?
He would welcome the woman’s apology and encourage people to talk and not condemn.
Of course, even decent white Americans can sometimes be insensitive about the terror, torment and countless forms of discrimination blacks have suffered in this country. What might help: Visits by all school children to the African American Museum in Washington. Visiting that museum is a profound experience-like one to the holocaust museums.
223
@jskinner
Obama does not live in this neighborhood and no one is obligated to do what he says or does. He has lectured black people enough without bothering to do anything for us, so he should keep quiet now.
8
@jskinner - you missed the point. People make mistakes - it happens. She apologized and seemed to make an honest effort to make amends. Don’t assume a German immigrant completely understands the cultural issues in this country. Let’s cut her some slack,
33
@Lynn in DC
How will we live together peacefully as a nation if the anger does not abate?
14
A story for the woke.
8
Annie Correal and her Editor, should know that one does not "wear" a noose, one is hanged from a noose. It's an article of murder, not an accessory. There's a sad irony in the articulation of a noose as being "worn" in an article about the insensitivity of someone displaying characters hanging from nooses.
Language really does matter, especially for folks who do language for a living.
9
Kudos to the people who resolved this in a community spirit. But I don't think nooses shoudl be avoided only in black neighbourhoods. Everyone should feel that lynchings are a stain on American history and avoid such images.
That said, I don't believe any community has a god-given right to any particular neighbourhood.
9
Why do people see race and offense in everything?
Can’t a decoration just be a decoration?
This poor immigrant (well, if she was poor & brown would be the cry) made an error, apologized cant we just move on?
13
If there was this much of an outcry and demonstrations every time a swastika is painted in Brooklyn the city would shut down. Yes, I know there were 2 incidents where there was an outcry, one in a playground, but for example a swastika in Fort Greene Park last year and several at subway stops last week didn’t seem to merit any demonstrations. This poor German woman made an honest, stupid mistake. To demonstrate in front of the Artshack that she literally resigned from (losing her livelihood) is ridiculous. Maybe she needs sensitivity training but it wasn’t a hate crime.
29
Our neighborhood is predominantly Latino, white and Asian, and about 10% African American.
As part of their front yard Halloween display, a young white couple hanged a full-sized skeleton from a noose on a tree. Walking past it on my way to work, I thought, "Whoa, that won't be there long."
The next day the homeowners posted an apology to the person who left a note pointing out the racist tone. They explained the noose was there to prevent the skeleton from being stolen. A day later, they placed the skeleton supine on the front yard.
I've met the couple. They walk their dogs around the block and appear to friendly, educated and polite. You never can tell, right?
Around the corner from that two flat are two day care centers. It's a treat to see the caretakers escort toddlers on their daily walks through the neighborhood. I hope that one of the day care employees called out that stupid Halloween display.
56
@elzbietaj last I checked, skeletons are not a "race". People are too whiny and overly sensitive these days.
30
@elzbietaj Not long ago women had to wear dresses and any who dared pants were scorned. Our idea of right thinking changes and in many places we have skeletons and nooses and yes we have witches even though countless women were burnt for being one. Tolerance is meaningless if it only applies to what is accepted as right behavior.
21
George Orwell, where are you? We need you more than ever.
What has happened to Halloween? A night for children to go around and collect candy in costumes, and have fun.
"First they came for the ......"
Scapegoating, mob-rule, and inflating racism. Her neighbors should feel ashamed of themselves. Too disgusting for comment. Perhaps , if they can read, they should read Shirley Jackson's, " The Lottery." What happened to Halloween? Liberal, Politically Correct, Racist.....do words have any meaning any more? George Orwell , "Help!"
15
A noose around the neck of a black man is not fun. Get serious.
9
You have completely missed the points made by Shirley Jackson and George Orwell.
4
Obviously very insensitive, but how does the Art group end up being responsible? Also, since when is "a robust discussion" defined as one where only one group's perspective is recognized? Oh yea, since now.
29
People have discussed this as a response to gentrification and as consciousness raising. The underlying assumption of the majority of the commentators seems to be that the Black or African American outrage is "correct."
I suggest that point of view is actually incorrect and what is worse, quite racist.
It has been pointed out by others that some years ago the area was mostly Jewish. Should African-Americans who moved in be condemned for moving in to a Jewish neighborhood? Or was that a "good" because the area became integrated?
And on the subject of the All Hallows Eve decorations, people need to understand the difference between public and private actions. It would clearly be wrong for a public institution, such as a school, to display such decorations. A private home is quite different. I may not like them, buut a private homeowner may do as s/he wishes. In fact, when this homeowner understood the implication of the display, she immediately removed it.
I suggest that less time be devoted to this matter and more to the Mayor and Council's racist decisions to build housing that they fully expect (actually demand) be segregated in already segregated neighborhoods. I think that is a more significant matter for the city.
22
I agree that whites gentrifying poor neighborhoods should listen.
They could also help maybe with after school education programs, maybe Big Brother, Big Sister.
But at the same time, it was disappointing that the blacks didn't seem to want to listen to Ms. Rice.
I get the feeling sometimes that some black activists will use these kinds of things for self-promotion.
And when that happens, it hurts the black cause.
I say this having grown up on the South Side of Chicago.
15
Why is the noose a symbol of Black oppression. Hundreds of White's were also hung, some of them also lynched.
So let's give a little thought to these "symbols" of oppresion and slavery, soon are vocabulary will be reduced due to hurt feelings.
The revisionista's are already removing our historical placards and statues, are we to totally , excuse the expression, "white wash" all historical totems.
Washington would be next, Jefferson, the list would go on and on.
12
The vast majority of lynching were done by white mobs to black men. This is a fact. We don’t need to celebrate it v
8
This is all a bit ridiculous. The decorations were clearly harmless as the woman took them as representations from a horror movie. She meant no malice and taking them down should have been the end of it. What has political correctness come to? Liberals run amock.
21
@Samiam
Except the images in the window look nothing like the doll in the movie. She is an artist and could have done better if inspiration from the Annabelle movie were truly her goal. I wonder if all of the "get over it" comments would even be said if she had put swastikas and SS symbols in her window as a "Nazi Halloween."
1
What do Latinos have to do with the odious noose representations? Almost nothing. This attempt to portray Latinos as just black “lite” is offensive. Nooses are offensive to black people for specific factual reasons - a long history of lynchings, mostly in the South. Let’s not change history and take this away from them.
6
No one should put a noose in their window but just for the sake of historical accuracy, one hundred years ago Bed Stuy was a neighborhood of Jewish and Italian immigrants.
39
Wow! Without even reading the article, I saw those pictures and thought those look like little brown skinned children. Still, I feel for Ms. Rose. She's being scapegoated for a horrible history that lives on in our culture. Yes, she should have known better, she was being ignorant and insensitive. But, a lot of good seems to have come out of her big mistake. I hope the people who demonstrated outside her house and Art Shack will celebrate that good outcome by reaching out to her and welcoming her back into the fold.
149
@Catherine I feel sorry for the Black children who had to deal with her racism and the Black families who had to deal with the trauma she chose to inflict on them. No one wanted to deal with all of this.
She is not being scapegoated for anything. She is a professional artist with decades of experience who chose the materials and colors she wanted to work with. The designs have nothing to do with the movie she said inspired them. Even without the racial overtones, depicting the murder of children directly across from a school was a provocative and deliberate attention-seeking act, so please stop pretending that she is being victimized. Why are Black children constantly targeted for hostility and aggression?
37
@Catherine
"Ignorant and insensitive?"
Excuse me? Where did you, or Ms. Rose, get the idea that Halloween was a celebration of murder, or that graphic depictions of murder were fun and festive Halloween decorations anywhere?
No, Ms. Rose is not a scapegoat. Her decorations were inappropriate, and that's an understatement. Bizarre, deranged, sick. Not a "mistake."
21
Amen! Acknowledge shameful American history, in order to move beyond it!
4
In the movie the Annabelle doll is "white" and has straight hair. But the decorations are made with brown paper and look like characters of black people. Even as an old white guy I can't help but see the "decorations" as racist.
15
And witchcraft! She was secretly practicing WITCHCRAFT! Some people in the neighborhood were inexplicably ill. She cast spells on them! She’s a witch!
Mob hysteria never disappoints. We’re not separated from the Salem Witch Trials by four hundred years. More like fifteen minutes.
35
I'm exhausted after reading this. And disheartened that this could have happened at all. Glad I don't live there. Do people think that a truly racist white woman would be aggressively racist enough to use Halloween decorations to taunt children? "Talented racists" work in much more insidious ways. Sad, too, to think that CHILDREN are being dragged into this: "See those noosed paper dolls? Those are supposed to be you!" Really? Aren't there enough truly terrifying racist threats out there the other 364 days?
36
@former MA teacher: I doubt the children had to be told that the people in the paper decorations looked like them. Or like white people's conception of them. I'm a former 4th grade teacher.
6
Bias training is a start. Relearning our racial history and facing the role white people had and still have in white supremacy would be even better. If you are white, you are a part of it whether you want to be or not. The least we can do us learn this, accept it, and thus stop being jerks - intentional or not - to our neighbors of color.
1
The fact she is from Germany needs to be considered. As an American who has lived overseas at one time or another in the UK, Russia (pre-Putin) and New Zealand, I could create a laundry list of times when I did something perfectly acceptable to Americans that is completely at odds with local sensibilities.
It was not out of malice or any interest to impose, it was simply not knowing. There is no written guide out there that will prepare you for every nuance you will encounter. After 13 years in NZ, a country one would think would be fairly close culturally (it is less than you think), I still get caught out on occasion.
37
@Bill
Thanks for that.
6
Okay, I get it. But, I can't help thinking of Charlottesville, "Jews will not replace us." Once you start letting it go, once you start growing a "thicker skin," you're lost.
8
First-rate writing on a complex story by Annie Correal
2
Wow, this article seems like it's from The Onion not The New York Times.. Honestly, this story could be an episode of South Park
27
While I think the decorations are rather tasteless (whatever happened to jack o' lanterns and black cats?) the fact that they had an actual reference ( inspired by a Horror movie) and that she immediately took them down and apologized should have been enough! All the hullabaloo that followed like going to her employer who had nothing to do with it yet still felt responsible (are you kidding me?) is totally ridiculous. This is just political correctness on steroids. If you want to get down to it, she had a perfect right to self expression and it had nothing to do with black people to her. She took it down when she found it offended black people and even resigned from her job! And they still tortured her! What more can a person do!!!!?
470
@C. Bernard - While I agree that taking any action against or in any way blaming her employer was over reaction, I think it must be said that it is next to impossible for those of us who are white to really comprehend the experienced life of our fellow black Americans.
While I would hate to see us follow the pathway of places where vengeance for what happened in the past is acceptable and, in fact, often encouraged, I find it dispiriting to when upset over a sordid history of racism and bigotry is dismissed as "political correctness." Have you never seen the photos of the bodies of black men hanging from nooses after a lynching? Do they not make you feel sick to your stomach? How would you feel if you knew it had been people who look like you hanging there, killed by those who do not share your skin color and who believe you are less human than they are? Our history of racism is an ugly, ugly heritage and one that creates on-going discrimination and bigotry among too many white people, suppressed anger among many black Americans--anger that often erupts into protests, usually peaceful, sometimes violent, and frequently fueling upset that you dismiss as "political correctness on steroids." And, yes, let's also admit that a history of being the victims of bigotry and discrimination can result in behaviors among those victims that neither help them nor encourage acceptance from the bigots. We ALL need to work together to escape this awful legacy.
54
@C. Bernard ...your white privilege is on full display. I'd like to see how you would feel if you were bombarded by threatening attitudes of all sorts, in the neighborhood where you live..including the expression of a sincere desire to hang you by the neck from a local tree. I truly wish that I could arrange that scenario somehow...your arrogance is astounding. As a "white" person, I am embarrassed by such as you.
You might want to consider: pale-skinned sorts are a decided minority, anywhere and everywhere that they-you and your sort- haven't suppressed the majority by highly objectionable means both subtle and overt.
21
@Al Packer I'm thinking that this lady became the target for all the frustration this community had been already feeling. They needed to have a conversation about the gentrification a long time before this happened, and not use innocent people as scapegoats. I did not have a choice of skin color and I don't feel guilty I'm white. As a teenager a black man just walking by spit in my face, because (I was told by others), he was angry at what white people did to blacks in the past. Did I deserve that? I think not. There are better ways to start a discussion about racism.
93
She immediately took the decorations down, she went to the school the next day and apologized, she's from Germany and didn't have the historical context for what the Halloween decorations mean. Geez. I look at it another way: residents not being welcoming to the newcomer/immigrant in the hood. Can't we all just get along?
59
In the future everyone will be world famous for fifteen minutes.
Andy Warhol
Sorry, I think this is staged to get in the newspaper. It's just too ridiculous to be anything else.
3
I attended that meeting facilitated by The Human Root, and left after 30 minutes. It wasn't "productive" in my estimation, although I appreciate the slant in this article and wish it were true.
"Those harmed by the incident" were encouraged to attend. The participants wound up being about 80% white. We were then told by Human Root that the reason why most of the participants were white was because white people are the problem. "Don't ask me what you can do to help," said Human Root. Apparently, not knowing how to help is racist. She added that our presence in the neighborhood is "genocide." We were there, she said, because we are racists, can't help being racists -- and need to atone for our sins.
But I was not there for that reason. After fielding much horrifying anti-white racism on Instagram and on the Bed-Stuy Facebook page, I was there for a DIALOGUE.
In my own case, I got pushed out of Williamsburg. If I were to move back to where I'm from, I wouldn't feel I belong there either. Why is it that blacks can call white presence "genocide" but whites must welcome blacks into "their" neighborhoods with open arms? The hypocrisy is nothing short of disgusting.
On the Bed Stay FB page recently a young mother appealed to someone who might know whose kid it was who was banging on her window every day, rousing the dog and her baby. Commenters noticed her light complexion and said: You're white. You deserve to have someone banging on your windows -- you don't belong here.
48
We get weaker, more juvenile, and less communicative every day.
13
Seems like the feeling of being displaced and losing your culture is universal. This is one of Trump's most successful talking points with white voters.
7
White supremacy and overt racism is evident in Canada too, as the very current kerfuffle about firing of Don Cherry from his long term haunt on Sportsnet's Ice Hockey Coach’s Corner.
On Nov. 9, Don Cherry targeted new immigrants for not wearing the red poppy: ..."You people that come here, you love our way of life, you love our milk and honey, at least you can pay a couple of bucks for poppies or something like that," said Cherry during Saturday's Hockey Night in Canada broadcast. ... "These guys paid for your way of life that you enjoy in Canada." Many native born Canadians do not wear the red poppy either.
On top of that, Hockey legend Bobby Orr (white of course) calls Cherry firing 'disgraceful' on Boston radio, he defended Cherry as a "generous, caring guy" and said the 85-year-old is not a bigot or a racist. Talk about confirmation bias. Cherry refused to apologize for his comments.
Here's the thing: if it looks and sounds like a racist rant, then it is racist remark out of a racist's mouth. And this is not a one-time blunder. Don Cherry has a long history of rants. Finally the sponsors of the show see public opinion turning sour and put their foot down.
It reflects the surfacing of white supremacy feeling in North America, Canada included, and why Donald Trump continue to get enthusiastic applause from his staunch supporters at rallies, turning the GOP politicians into spineless jellyfish.
1
Mr. Foy seems to take the position that white newcomers must conform to the community. If they do not, it's "white supremacy".
"some people" reads like "you people"
We're at the point where the mere existence of white people can be folded into white supremacy. I don't see how this is materially different from the 1950s "there goes the neighbourhood" when a Jewish, or Black person bought a home in a white and christian area.
And spare us the critical race theory argument that black people cannot be racist.
29
When the police stop shooting (or over reacting) when dealing with African Americans, then we can tell African Americans to “not be so sensitive”.
I am white and it took a long while for me to understand that people of color are made to feel like outsiders in their own country. Thankfully, I get it now.
I am in awe of our African American culture. It has helped to make our country truly great.
What if everyone voted? Maybe we can become sane again.
189
@Lyd Jose Just the other day a good friend who is Mexican-American (born in Detroit), a retired executive director of a non-profit in CA, told me that if Trump is re-elected she will move to Mexico until his term is over. Why? Because she doesn't feel safe (eg, ICE detentions of innocent people, increase in hate crimes against people of color). She feels helpless and wants to distance herself from the horror and continuing degradation of Hispanic families separated at the border. As white people, we need to step out of our insulated cultural bubble and walk in the shoes of people of color. It's uncomfortable, but necessary. We need to experience the truth, then stand with people of color in demanding justice.
9
I think the fact that she is from Germany, and perhaps unaware of the meaning of this imagery, is not given nearly enough attention in this article, and perhaps in the neighborhood. Everyone makes mistakes from lack of awareness.
196
@Phil - Seriously? How long has she been here? The full horror of lynching of black Americans has received a fair amount of attention in the last few years, so it's rather hard to imagine that she didn't learn as much as many American-born white people during this period of time. In addition, as a German, Ms. Rose was brought up in a country with strict hate speech laws. Did she learn nothing about the effects of anti-Semitism and racism? Certainly, there are arguments in Germany about the restrictions on free speech arising from these laws and other related issues, but the point is that someone growing up there would surely be aware of the realities having to do with hate speech.
And, further, why would she have shown any children, any children at all--white, black, yellow, whatever--hanging from nooses? What a stupid, stupid thing to do. And then compound it with showing the children as brown. Wow.
21
@Phil It was a mistake. Everyone that knows her says so. Everyone mind you. When you're from another country you don't always think about America. America is the center of the world for Americans but it is not for a lot of people who aren't from America.
12
@Dr. Direedrae Daney Agreed. She is from Germany, she made a mistake, and she rectified her mistake. This mistake opened up a wonderful dialogue within the community; something that is much needed in our country, but is sorely lacking, as we Americans tend to want to disparage rather than discuss.
“America is the center of the world for Americans...”-there has never been a more true statement. For those Americans who have never been outside the U.S. (and maybe those who have): when in foreign countries, it is oft times extremely obvious who the Americans are. Many/most American are loud, brash, obnoxious, disrespectful of other’s ways of life, and demand that others speak English-in their own, non-English speaking country. Yet we demand that foreigners, while in America, know EVERY single nuisance of our culture.
Please-Ms. Rose made a mistake. She corrected it. The community took the opportunity to have a open dialogue to quash the anger and the upset. See the good that came from the innocent mistake.
19
Does nothing have context anymore? It was about a horror film and the dolls had red hair. It's obvious she wasn't advocating for lynching. People need. To. Chill. Out.
238
@Biz Griz ...it's not obvious at all, unless you are both ignorant and insensitive. Then, it might be obvious.
18
@Biz Griz Intention (of it being about a horror film) can be innocent or good... but we are still accountable for impact (on any person of color especially - the chilling legacy of lynching). Both intention and impact have context. Certainly she wasn't advocating for lynching - but she was traumatizing her neighbors.
6
@Susan And she immediately took down the decorations and apologized as soon as she realized that.
Is there no room for innocent mistakes anymore? Have we become so intolerant and unforgiving that an innocent mistake can’t be forgiven?
She made an innocent mistake, recognized it, and apologized for it. That’s mature adult behavior.
The people who couldn’t forgive her for it (and then protested her work, which had nothing to do with it!) are the people who are preventing this country from uniting.
29
Once again: income. Ms. Lorick-Wilmot choose to sell the house not to someone from one of the multi-generational black families but rather to a white newcomer. An opportunity was taken to raise newcomers historical awareness but what about the people driven out by economic considerations? Do they count?
86
@Z I’m not sure if this is your point necessarily, but the Fair Housing Act (perhaps ironically)would possibly prevent the family from selling the home to a “white newcomer,” rather than a “multi-generational black” family. In addition, was the buyer “white”? The article states that she’s from Germany, yet does not necessarily assert her whiteness. Finally, if a multi generational black family could enrich future generations, or even their own,
with a savvy real estate sale, and beget some of the privilege that “white newcomers” may be assumed by some to have— that would be powerful, but only if it could occur on a wide scale, which, it appears, is unfortunately not the current economic reality in the US.
25
Actually, in general legal terms, a home owner per se of a single family house can choose to whom to sell the property without any repercussion from application of Fair Housing laws. It is the licensed real estate agents and brokers who are legally prohibited by these laws to exercise any sorts of illegal discrimination in selling, buying, leasing by wide definitions.
40
Imagine the quantity of lower middle income white and black homeowners in the gentrifying neighborhoods who can now sell their houses which they bought thirty or forty years ago on a janitor or cook or nurse salary and now reap a $1-2 million dollar capital gain ?
26
As a fellow graphic artist who just came to this story, I decided to see what Annabelle in the movie looked like to judge for myself. Annabelle was a white doll with straight blonde hair. What is disingenuous about Dani's protestations that the doll characters with nooses looked like brown or black kids is because she used brown craft paper is that their hair is colored and none of their hair is straight but curly or vaguely afro hairdos. Obviously a very strange display that suggested brown and black kids in many more ways than the color of the paper used to create them.
8
@Sharon Okada : I read your comment and thought I'd forgotten the offending decorations: 2 figures have red hair, 1 spiky, the other in pigtails. The figure with curly hair has no noose. If Daniela Rose is very new to the US, it seems she doesn't get Halloween, whose costumes and decorations would be weird if you weren't familiar with the context. I checked pix of Annabelle and they are horrifying [it is a horror film, after all.] Ms Rose's cutouts are whimsical, but I wouldn't put them on display near an elementary school. Why Artshack had to apologize is unclear to me. From the article, it seems they went above and beyond good neighborliness.
7
Story #1 seems to be about being torn between seeing Bed Sty as special case, and seeing it as inevitable. A very African-American community for over 60 years, second only to Harlem in NYC's black cultural legacy. A culture overshadowed as white creatives enter, with cultural output of their own (like ceramics.) Given threats to black identity, this seems insidious.
But neighborhoods aren't museums. The culture of the 40s, 60s, 80s isn't enough today. Enclaves still attract people, but these are backwaters. Diversity thrives.
But there's another story. Bed Sty has the greatest Victorian architecture in the entire country, built in the 19th c. In the 30s it was destination for prosperous African-Americans. Like artists of the 90s, they were the first wave, followed by working-class blacks in the 40s. Choosing Bed Sty for its style and value. A good investment.
African-American families have 1/10th the assets of white families. Systematic racism, red-lining, failed schools are causes. But most white assets are real estate. The reality of Bed Sty is it's a place where black families have increasingly valuable assets, because their parents and grandparents understood value.
Blacks gaining wealth is the best way to defeat racism.
3
"They were the first wave."
No, they were not. After the gentry, as you point out, Jews and Italians.
10
Beyond the nooses, the lips and hair of the figures are grossly exaggerated as is typical of overtly racist depictions that any thinking artist knows to avoid.
My question is who moves to another country and makes public displays without researching the race, religion, history, and sensitivities of the locals, especially across from a school? I’m a white atheist born into the Christian tradition but I exhaustively research everything I can about a locale before I visit. I even wear a scarf in Islamic countries just to show respect and minimize my intrusion. And if I move there as I did for a spell living in Scotland, I do even more research. Even then, I lay really low for a long while and just observe.
What the studio did was highly commendable and smart but the house-owner is solely responsible. It’s like moving to Germany and hanging a Nazi flag in the window of your flat or serving pork to observant Muslims you’ve invited to dinner. It’s pretty hard to sympathize with the willful ignorance going on in this day and age of easy online access to the sum of all human knowledge. There’s even a German language edition of that knowledge too.
2
All this talk of "thin" and "thick" skin is another way of saying "excuse my casual racism, I am white, have not gone the racial experience you (people) are going through, so I am surprised. But, my daily actions do not reflect my values. It is not who I am".
Drum roll.
1
This is a good read, but “surprising” is not the headline I would have used. Communities of color have had to educate and dialogue with white folk for generations.
1
Some of us feel that the pervasive display of an ancient instrument of torture, with or without a bloody figure on it, is equally horrifying.
2
Great to hear that the extremely harmful symbolism and history behind the decorations were explored. Even better to know that a productive discussion was had and is continuing. However, we need to give up the angry mob dynamics behind call-out culture and transition to call-in culture. The decorations needed to be removed promptly, and the owner of the house needed further education. But is the unbridled hatred really necessary? Does a brief lapse in judgement require that she quits her job, or that her place of employment (which was completely UNRELATED) somehow takes the blame when the decorations were on her PRIVATE property? Kudos to the studio owners for embracing the community and acknowledging the pain, but quite frankly, that was not their obligation.
I don't believe a person is solely comprised of their mistake. People are more than their occasional stupid decisions. A consistent record of stupid decisions is a different story and could indicate a more developed ideology. But this? This was just ignorance. She needed to be educated, not shunned and effectively fired from her job. Responding with vengefulness and hate does not solve hate. C'mon now. Call out mistakes, but don't cancel people. That doesn't make them want to understand you or what they did wrong. It makes them further isolated and could foster more hatred.
13
Does anyone there remember the work of the late great Senator Robert Kennedy and the Bedford Stuyvesant Restoration Corporation?
2
Ms Rose bought the home from a black family that had it for generations. Change dynamics of the neighborhood is only possible with the help of the neighborhood families and people selling family homes to the highest bidder instead of someone who is the same color as them. But maybe that thinking is illegal...
2
A very arduous battle. Congratulations.
I am fascinated by the double standard that seems to never be be questioned in the NYT. "The editors are New Yorkers," I tell myself, "How do they not see the irony?"
Decades ago, when black people moved in droves into "legacy"white neighborhoods, and the white "longtime residents" felt that the newcomers were not adding to the existing "cultural richness" and protested--and wanted the newcomers out, they were called racist and were vilified in the media, including the NYT. When they gave up and left for the suburbs, that was labled by the media as "White Flight" which was and still is blamed for the collapse of the neighborhoods they abandoned.
Most white people have been trained to see any assertion of preference as racist behaviour on their part. But that doesn't stop them from feeling just like the black people quoted in this artice, who "feel a sense of loss. They don't know this neighborhood anymore." They feel that the new people do not "understand or care that they are now in a legacy place. They don't like you or think nothing of you."
I would never put cut-out, cartoon images of children being hanged in my window, period. And I admit that I would assume things about whoever did do that--but racism wouldn't be on the list!
I wonder what the reaction of black people in this article would be if the homeowner were not white? Or if she had fashioned the figures out of white paper instead of brown?
What then?
As for the school, kids only know what they are taught.
19
Neighborhoods change.
What is overlooked by the black residents who resent the changing face of their neighborhood is that a half century ago many of the "black" neighborhoods of Brooklyn were largely "white" working class neighborhoods.
And, many of those residents also resented the changing face of their neighborhood. There is even a well known lamentation:
There goes the neighborhood!
9
Putting that decoration up across from a school filled with black and Latino children seems obviously intensive given the brown paper used to make the figures. And I understand the symbolism of the news to black people. But I grew up just north of Salem, Massachusetts. It was a small, and yes very white, town, still is. But I don't think anyone ever thought of nooses in terms of hanging black people other than from history, which by the way was taught in our school without the varnish. Every Halloween, there would be many yard decorations involving figures hanging from nooses, most often witches and, strangely, ghosts. I always understood this symbol's Halloween association came from the Salem witch hysteria. I have seen these decorations all my life, and never once before this news story did I think of the connotation of a lynching.
So am I forever to be labeled as an unaware and complicit racist because this symbol meant something different to me?
Like the proverbial tree falling in the forest, it's a community that's almost exclusively white uses a noose as a Halloween decoration, is it immediately and always offensive, or only when it's observed by a person of color?
I'm feeling rather old and crotchety this morning.
10
We hang decorations in trees (angels and Santas at Christmas) but not by the neck, no matter what the ‘colour’. And if made of ‘brown craft paper’ all the more reason to steer clear of doing so. The fact that Ms. Rose’s heritage is German is a ‘red herring’ – Germans are quite cognizant of racism, and she has lived in the neighbourhood for a decade. It is very unfortunate that Artshack Brooklyn has been caught up in this contretemps. I’d never heard of the ‘Annabelle’ doll cited in the story, but looked it up and it seems to be a ‘haunted’ doll from a horror film franchise based on a Raggedy Ann. What bothers me most is that the character second from the left in the accompanying picture is uncomfortably reminiscent of an anti-black caricature created in the late 19th Century of a minstrel called a ‘Golliwog’, which had wild, frizzy hair. If these images are drawn from that depiction, this is extremely problematic. It does strike me that contemporary Halloween decorations have generally veered into rather crude, and for kids, terrifying territory. I would not want my four year old encountering a zombie with its guts spilling out on someone’s front porch – whatever happened to spider webs, jack-o-lanterns and skeletons and ghosts? Keep the more grotesque images for the adult parties.
1
This article is just too short to do justice to the concerns that it raises. Does Ms Rose’s being from overseas really have nothing to do with her error? Did the protest at Artshack have any logical justification? Whom did the African-Americans who made this neighborhood their own supplant? What of that earlier community’s “legacy”? One could go on.
8
Compassion and understanding seem to be just a one-way street now. She’s from Germany. She quickly took it down and apologized. She should not have had to give up her job.
15
The explanation that this woman is from Germany sounds perfectly plausible to me. Different cultures, different taboos, different caution signs. Also, the reporter should have bothered to mention that the doll in the “Anabelle” story a Raggedy Ann doll! Look at those figures in the window. They are Raggedy Ann drawings. Sometimes people see what they want to see, and assume cruel intention that is not there. I think this was an honest mistake, as well as poor judgement.
Remember that just because someone gets something wrong, that doesn’t mean they intend to hurt. Back in the 198Os a man from Switzerland to.d me he thought the film “The Color Purple” was “The Colored People.” Because Switzerland. It’s best to stand back for a moment and think before you lash out and accuse.
8
So it’s ok for long time residents of a minority neighborhood to protest when white outsiders coming with different traditions and values? And, it’s ok to assign responsibility of one person’s action to a whole different group simply because they are the same race?
Does that also apply when minority residents move into traditionally white neighborhoods?
I hope not — in either case.
8
how does a liberal, artistically included person not know this would be terribly offensive? the "ignorance defense" stinks.
2
Bed-Stuy is a multigenerational black neighborhood,” she said. “People imagine they’re in a new place without understanding they’re in a legacy place.”
Pretty funny. How history is always being re-written to suit present day occupants. it's called Clinton Hill. The most prominent educational institution is Pratt, built by a resident - the founder and owner of Standard Oil. Pratt was built to train immigrants to America in the late 1800's .
Walt Whitman's contemporaries built vacation homes here before Pratt. Before Whitman, the Dutch initially cultivated the area with large farms prior to the vacationers.
Etc. Etc. "Legacy"? legacy is all relative. Let's figure out how to live together, not thrive on division, nor attack others with false stereotypes because of superficial genetic indicators. It's time to stop elevating oneself at the expense of others via hate filled stereotypes asserted "facts" which are in reality personal attacks masquerading as some wrong that has been done to them.
23
It doesn't seem like anyone is going let peace and harmony happen anytime soon. A noose in the deep south is one thing, but a noose anywhere else in the US around the end of October, assuming it isn't accompanied by a confederate flag, is a holiday decoration.
6
This really seems like a mountain made out of a molehill. A German immigrant put up Halloween decorations and didn’t realise the implications. She apologised. End of story.
12
"There are people in this community, primarily of African ancestry, who feel a sense of loss. They don’t know this community anymore.”
The way people who lived in Flatbush, Fort Greene, and other neighborhoods, and whose parents and grandparents had lived there, felt when they lost their homes in the 1960s, when buildings, entire blocks, and then whole areas, fell prey to newcomers whose behavior made nights and days unsafe, untenable.
The hanging tan-paper cut-outs were idiotic. How thoughtless -- and thoughtlessly cruel. But let's not pretend that Clinton Hill was always black. Those townhouses were built for Brooklyn gentry.
20
I was going to write a comment but then I remembered: on some occasions I've been a direct witness or participant in a complicated situation that was covered by the NY Times and the reporting often left out all sorts of facts that I considered key. And not because of any agenda or even any obvious deficiency in reporting. I love the Times, and mostly trust it (notwithstanding a bit of yellow cake here and there), but my only comment on this rather frustrating sounding situation has to be: I wonder what's really going on.
7
@David A. I too have been party to several incidents reported in several major newspapers. Some of the irrefutable facts were incorrectly reported, let alone the more subjective elements, and yet I too believe that in general no malice was intended. Bottom line, skepticism of single newspaper reports is warranted.
2
Bedford-Stuyvesant was historically white until the 1950's.
17
Allen, people don't want to know. It isn't a history they're interested in knowing.
I loathe Donald Trump and his fan base, but I shudder to think what New York City will be like when professional agitators and promulgators of victimhood get even more of an upper hand.
6
While I am happy to read of the productive aftermath, may I suggest what should be obvious - don’t display images of lynchings of any kind. Why, how could any such image, of any human victim, be viewed with a shrug or amusement, even in jest? It belittles the horror of the act and is quite frankly just weird
2
I assume Ms. Rose needed large paper to make her Halloween decorations, and found some kraft paper. Ms. Rose wasn't thinking "brown paper" she was thinking "big paper" and so she made her decorations from that.
What if she had a roll-end of news print in her closet? Same figures, on white paper. Then what would have been the message?
And the figure in the window hung by the ankle: Is this a common symbol of oppression in the South? What about the figure just leaning into view in the right window? Is that in homage to Emmett Till?
So many layers of meaning in this poor woman's feeble Halloween decorating attempt.
4
"One of many thousands who came to Brooklyn from the segregated South as part of the Great Migration, Curives Lorick Sr. fled South Carolina after World War II, when fellow black service members were lynched “or beaten within an inch of their lives while in uniform,”..."the house on Waverly, where the decorations appeared, was once his."
This is the irony - the bigger story, and the most important message.
This isn’t that complicated. Most people, including white people, know that the display of nooses are offensive to the black community. This incident is a direct result of Ms. Rose’s ignorance. I don’t think it was “white supremacy” nor do I think she’s racist, based on the article (I do however think it was insensitive to keep the decorations up for so long after the first concerns were raised). In any case, even young black kids who have never stepped foot in Germany—where Ms. Rose is apparently from— know that references to the Holocaust, both verbal and visual, would be offensive and wrong. Please someone get her literally any middle or high school U.S. history book, just start there.
43
@Sean - They would not be just "offensive and wrong" but actually against the law.
6
The most unreasonable part of the situation is to hear the lady explain why she did it(based on a movie and obviously true) and still be relentlessly attacked. Quite frankly, no one needs to try to understand your life experience nor do many of us have any interest in doing so. We aren't on the same team. We aren't a village raising children together. We are strangers and your feelings should have no impact on my life. Isn't having both your hands in my wallet enough already?
7
I am black and I think that all sides in this story went completely overboard. First of all, Ms. Rose was rather careless when she put up those decorations. The only thing she ws thinking of was celebrating Holloween by putting up what she believed to be Holloween decorations, but no thought at all was given to what the neighbors would think. Then the barrage of protest by Mr. Foy was beyond immature. A simple discussion with Ms. Rose, especially after she removed the "decorations" would have been much more mature than the "cancel culture" acting out. Figures. After all, the Bible describes a time when people would be both thoughtless and careless AND impossible to deal with, not open to any form of agreement. That time is clearly NOW. Both sides were completely wrong in how this misunderstanding was handled.
50
Everyone is going on about the horrendous decorations; this article is about what happens when people make decisions to live somewhere and think the decent views they bring with them from ______ while admirable, are inadequate as to the experience of people who have had to leave their home (perhaps for the second time in history) and in Brooklyn, where life just isn’t the same as it is is most other cities in the US...or the world.
Progress is great, change is great, but never to the extent that it upends and displaced everything and everyone in its path so that a place is almost unrecognizable, loses its identity, its flavor, its soul, and worst of all, its people. Why did anyone come in the first place? Was it just the commute, the prestige, the branding?
Brooklyn-spraining. If people don’t get it, then they’ll be getting it.
Brooklyn, Queens, Bronx, these places, people are New York City. Please appreciate and respect that. That is what has always made NYC the greatest place in the world. New people always arriving, a little different, but together, sticking together especially when it gets tough, you need something, you got it. The loud voices or fast movement should never be confused for not caring or disinterest; just ask.
But respect the lives of people who came here, especially fleeing hard times as most migrants did, which is a majority of the original New York City story.
The new migration is very different, and very fancy.
The basic rule, "Do unto others as you would have them do unto you," is probably the most often ignored rule! It seems to be more like, 'do unto others before they get a change to do unto you!' Basic human decency is all but lost anymore.
People tend to see things only from their perspective and so many variables determine a perspective - experience, upbringing, environment, etc. So, no two people will see the same thing, generally speaking. How anyone can be so insensitive to others makes no sense! It is totally lacking in logic! Who's understanding, or view, would we live by, then? By my view? By your view? By HER view?
To view the world from only one angle just shows how close-minded some people can be. The world is not made up of only one view!
3
Two years ago a few people had nooses with skeletons hanging from trees as Halloween decorations in my Southern California neighborhood. When I first saw them on my daily walk it really shocked me (I'm white in a predominately white neighborhood). The historical image was clear. Fortunately someone realized the connection and they were removed. What also surprised me was my own averse reaction to it. I can only imagine my emotions if I were black.
83
@Sterling
I hate to reveal how clueless I am, but I've been seeing various figures hung from small trees, skeletons and cloth ghosts usually, at Halloween for many years, and never thought much of it. (And yes, I'm white.) Upon reading the instant article, I can certainly see that many can find the associations raised by these decorations disturbing in their connotations.
But the main reason I've always found these decorations to be inoffensive is merely because I interpreted the noose as simply the only way to attach the object to the tree. Would the offensiveness be eliminated if the string were, say, attached to a loop stuck to the back of the figure, or do we need to avoid humanoid figures completely?
I think a similar problem may occur with Christmas tree ornaments such as nutcracker soldiers or angels, although the attachments are usually hooks driven through the tops of their heads. (Which is rather gruesome, too, come to think of it.)
Nevertheless, I think that part of being a good neighbor is to be sensitive to the feelings of the other people in the neighborhood, be they residents or passers-by; gentrification amplifies that requirement of sensitivity many-fold. I'm glad the neighborhood in Brooklyn found a way to directly address the feelings hurt by this episode.
But I do wonder, what has happened to Ms. Rose? Is she still an object of vilification? I hope she was part of the dialogue and healing, since she, too, is part of the neighborhood.
23
@Sterling
Nooses are not part of any traditional Halloween decorations that I've ever seen. They really do not fit with jolly jack'o'lanterns and friendly ghosts, cute spiders and bats. In my neighborhood, there has been a tendency to push the envelope with slightly more gruesome objects, like fake severed heads, which struck me as gross. But nobody puts up images of lynchings any more than they would put up Nazi paraphernalia. What that woman was thinking I cannot imagine.
I'm glad it sparked a conversation about what was happening in the neighborhood. When you move into a neighborhood, whatever your race or culture, you should show respect for the people already living there. It's possible, people.
7
@Dan Thompson - You bring up a good point, but I think there's a difference between cloth ghosts and small skeletons hung with them and the kinds of images in Ms. Rose's windows or full size skeletons dangling from trees.
2
Well, regarding the noose image- res ipsa loquator. It just cannot be used and I do not want to hear that outlaws got hung by them out in the West back in the day.
As for gentrification? Here in Philly, so far the big emphasis has been on poor white nabes-some of them anyway- like Fishtown and Northern Liberties. Manayunk of course in terms of student housing. What these places have in common is easy access downtown via the El or commuter trains.
However, things are happening on the stretch of North Broad closest to City Hall and black nabes like Point Breeze. You can see Changes in other parts of town.
Meanwhile up in the Northeast, other nabes have gone from white to minority.
It is complex. Having said all that, what this woman could possibly have been thinking is hard to understand.
3
These do look like the dolls in the film. Ms. Rose should have thought this through a bit more to avoid offending anyone, but her apology seemed quite sincere. Why has no one denounced the horror film since that was where the imagery came from? Wouldn’t a noose be just as offensive in a film?
15
Does intent matter ?
We played "hangman" as kids ... hanging a Halloween Ghost from a tree was a common sight back in the 70's ... I'm talking New Jersey people. Even the 80's
I'm not sure how we get past this stuff ... I'm not reading in this article where anyone believes this person had any ill will. And. how is the studio responsible at all?
It's ignorance .. and--- that requires education and understanding.
As to the changing neighborhoods ... it's not going to stop. In fact -- it never has. Change is the only constant .. you don't get to hold on.
14
A very arduous battle, but not yet victory in the war.
I see more grotesque and horrifying displays every year; I think people have seen so many slasher films they think it is funny! And this is in a medium sized college town.
You start hanging things from trees you make yourself a target...how do people not know this is completely inappropriate?
1
Did Rose not have any family, friends, neighbors to show up right away and point out a problem with decorations? And it strikes me that the black residents have vented their anger over gentrification on that poor art store. They would be better served by working to educate voters and work to remedy increasing income inequality in this country. News flash - they are not the only populations being displaced by richer folk.
11
I'm going to argue that we've tipped too far in weighing impact over intent and that we're laying charges that belong against society and history at individual's doorstep.
it's a dicey punitive standard when we can attack and destroy someone for ignorance.
impact matters but it's a poor standard for judgement
28
This is why liberals (or “progressives”) are doomed to failure. Whiny, petty, sheltered, insufferable, and can’t see the forest for the trees.
And this is from someone who kinda identifies as one... and unfortunately I’m moving farther and farther away by the day as I see them make silly arguments, stand up for criminals, and generally waste their good educations on navel-gazing.
6
@Renee
YOU are why we have the “OK, Boomer” reply.
This is a remarkable article, that sums up political and cultural distinction in 2019.
A Halloween decoration put up in poor taste leads to a mob questioning the legitimacy of a business, ostensibly on race of its ownership.
The article treats all white people as one dimensional monolith bent on conquering Brooklyn with ceramic studios. The fact that the offending person was German seems to be a fairly significant aspect; if you want to make a point about historical injustice (it got a sentence in the article).
The second strange take away is the resistance to desegregation. These people have the same mentality as Trump voters in middle America...their way of life is being taken away. Make Brooklyn Great Again???
25
Since when has anyone associated a noose (ugh) with Halloween? Every time Halloween rolls around I'd like to tell the "adults" to let it be. What has American Society not snatched away from children in the name of profit and excess...all masquerading as fun and creativity. of course. Their small fantasy worlds of ghosts, cauldrons, haunted houses and witches replaced by clamor, gun drills, digital junk and the blockbuster superheroes.
1
What seems to be missing in this discussion is an awareness that negative conditioning, (things that we learned long ago that we now (we being the society) know to be wrong, stays submerged and hidden until their evidence is exposed.
This is obviously a point of conflict between the oppressed (past and/or current) and those whose psyche wants to retain, but not take responsibility for their shadow.
This micro-story about a suppressed individual and the consciously unintentioned victims is how perfectly it mirrors the mega-story about gentrification and a system that designates the other to be the losers no matter the circumstances.
That Ms. Rose, who made a very human error (and is a product of her conditioning) and the Artshack are part of their milieu does not make them thus "responsible" for the real cause of the turmoil (they are only responsible for their own new learning). However while on the interpersonal level this is an overblown response, on the larger level this becomes a teaching moment too important to miss. Every day we hear someone in the news after doing some vile and racist act declare that they thems selves are not racist.
Ms. Rose does something wrong and was admonished for it, which makes her human. The society, on all sides, does something wrong but only "sees" what the other is doing.
We are all products of a racist system, perpetrators and victims alike.
2
Good article... happy to see healthy dialog springing up even after emotions took hold.
Note that I would still have read it without a clickbait title.
2
Neighborhoods change, demographics change. People have to accept that. You don't own the neighborhood. Anyone is allowed to live there. If you are offended by a changing neighborhood, the burden is on you to move.
14
@CJ what if the little candy store your grandpa took you after getting your haircut was turned into a faux tiki bar with 17 dollar ironic mai tails? Or the shoe store where you got school loafers every year? How would you feel? Why should the people who built and lived and grew up in a neighborhood move out to make room for trend seekers inflicting their values on them? It is not only a racial issue in many neighborhoods in my Brooklyn, it is cultural, tradition, ethnic, and many other heritages that are figuratively whitewashed when money comes into the picture. Why should these lifers move out? Imagine the outrage of a swarm of native New Yorkers taking over quaint midwestern towns and erasing their history and culture with their tastes, trends, and style? How would the diner dwellers if the heartland feel about that? Should they just move out of their home for generations?
6
Being white middle class and from Flushing Queens, I feel the impact of newcomers, both good and bad. A number of buildings and homes have been made into (some) illegal asian churches. Others illegal buildings thrown up and then fines paid. The landscape has changed for the worse in some ways, but the life and culture these new comers bring makes up for the tasteless architecture of buildings and parking issues. Except real estate laws that were knowingly broken, that is not acceptable. Accepting enviable change with grace is important. Ms Rose bought the home from a black family, maybe families should stop selling to the highest bidder and keep it in the same colored hands.
1
I don't know what to think.
If she was trying to be malicious and racist, would she have taken the decorations down and then went to the school to apologize?
The horror film Annbelle does have creepy images of dolls and it was Halloween. So examining it within that context, it seems like her apology should be accepted. Her employer shouldn't be held accountable.
On the other hand, we are living in highly sensitive times because of the overt racism and nationalism coming from Trump. and his minions, and because cops keep killing innocent black Americans; including numerous unarmed children. People are on edge and on alert.
Hopefully, the situation brought about dialogue and understanding. Everyone will now co-exist peacefully.
3
We fight about symbols and feelings because we have no power over real issues.
13
My prior comment focused on the aspect of the changing face of the neighborhood. I wrote that on my mobile phone in bed early this morning, and the details of the window display were not evident on the small screen of my phone.
Looking at the picture of the window display now on a larger screen, all I can say is: Wow. That is some hostile and threatening imagery.
1
As I don't see my prior comment posted, I'll summarize it here...
Neighborhoods change.
Indeed, a half century ago these same "black" neighborhoods in Brooklyn were rapidly transformed from predominantly working-class "white." In certain areas the complete change-over happened in less than ten years.
At the time the existing residents were similarly lamenting the "loss" of "their" neighborhoods. There was even a well know saying, often based on racial prejudice:
"There goes the neighborhood."
This is an interesting article and discussion. I normally can’t stand woke/triggered/cancel / PC culture ect... I’m a white women living in a very red state who is directly in the middle politically but I can’t believe someone would have those decorations on their windows anywhere. I would never dream of using those as halloween decorations. I’m appalled anyone ever would use a noose as a decoration. The connotations are clear by anyone’s standard. (all races, religions, ect...)
I’m glad they didn’t go after the women with pitchforks and torches but what kind of cave has she been living in not to know these would be appalling to anyone? Jeez!
1
Anyone who puts up decorations such as these is either mentally unbalanced or evil. Ignorance is simply not an option. Either way, the community has an obligation to rise up and protest. Ms Rose's state of mind was not a fleeting one and is not to be over shadowed by an apology of the moment.
Kudos to all the residents of this town for making lemonade out of such an ugly Halloween display. African Americans have always borne the burden of forgiving and educating their neighbors in productive ways. For 30 years, I've lived as a racial minority in a Trumptown neighborhood. I have some wonderful white friends, but plenty of right-wingers and racists feel free to say and do whatever they like. Forget apologies or efforts to educate! It will be a long wait before my community will engage in a dialogue tike the one described in this article.
Lemonade? The woman lost her job.
5
“you’re subject to walking into a bar in the neighborhood that was yours and being looked at like you don’t belong there.”
Isn’t this the same argument ALWAYS made when complaining that a neighborhood is changing/diversifying? Things always change.
9
On the one hand, there is a certain common sense aspect about this where I'm surprised that having these tan paper cutouts with nooses didn't strike her as a bad idea. Besides, how often do we use nooses as parts of halloween directions anyways? On the other hand, these figures don't look remotely like black individuals, so I really think the fault is on social media and the local community for oversensitivity.
I mean, I've seem plenty of warped people who have done stuff like hang Santa Clause for halloween, and it never sparked any outrage. Even in my neighborhood, somebody did that to a Trump effigy this year- quite to the contrary of this incident, people where I live were cheering and taking selfies with it. And you don't honestly think that would be insulting to people with certain political inclinations, who are already frustrated at constantly being harangued and called all sorts of epithets?
Freedom of speech is freedom of speech, and people should learn to mind their own business, even if something is offensive. Can't say how many times as a Jew I've just kept my mouth shut about swastikas and vitriolic graffiti or bonafide advertisements about Palestine that was clearly untrue. But the creators of those objects have a write to speak their piece, no matter how bad. But this- this is just taking something benign and making a mountain of a molehill. I really wish Ms. Rose had the gall to stand up and say- "this isn't racist. Learn to stop overreacting!"
6
Thus, if I want to keep my own culture and habits, I should not expect to be allowed to live in a place where I expect others' cultures will conflict with mine? I either change my ways -- learn different habits, accept different beliefs -- or stay in my own neighborhood? I should think alike, act alike, believe in the same truths, learn at the same speed as everyone, love everyone? I cannot not blend in? Is this the only way I can prove to you that I'm not racist?
5
I applaud what the people of Artshack did for the community. As for Ms Rose - she might want to relocate to Mississippi or Georgia where she will be among other whites who are mystified by the strong negative reactions to "harmless pranks" like hanging black effigies in the front yard.
1
My sense walking around gentrifying neighborhoods in Brooklyn (as a White male who was part of that process) was that a lot of my White co-gentrifiers carried themselves with a certain smug “how cool am I, living in a Black neighborhood, down with the Black people” vibe that was pretty oblivious about what we were doing (I’ve since moved to a non-gentrifying n’hood in Manhattan). Of course I was as much a part of the process as they were. But the attitude we White gentrifiers bring with us is a small part of the problem. More humility, less How cool am I, seems warranted if it’s going to happen at all.
99
@David Miller
Might you be projecting? I recall not wanting to move to Bed-Stuy — but then we had to because we couldn’t afford anything else. We mind our own business and are friendly when the situation calls for it. We are not exacting any attitude whatsoever. Yet I get spit at, am blocked from moving to open space on the train, and have been harassed for racist reasons (a common refrain: “I’m Brooklyn!”) I have been the recipient of much racism — and don’t try to justify it with a history my ancestors had nothing to do with!)
Enough with the stereotyping and denigration of white people AND black. Regardless, what Human Root said at that meeting has me convinced that black racism is a huge problem that whites can do nothing about.
36
We're getting so much of this from all the white people coming here from Brooklyn. There have always been plenty of New Yorkers in Montclair, but all of a sudden they feel entitled to everything we have, and have completely destroyed whatever little vestiges of peace and privacy we had left. If I tried this in their neighborhoods, I'm sure they'd call the cops on me.
11
@Stephanie Wood NON GENTRIFYING NEIGHBORHOOD IN MANHATTAN...??? Are you kidding? WHERE? it must be gentrified ALREADY or about to be. Still you must have a made a nice profit in brooklyn to move into manhattan I assume. And now onto your next INVESTMENT property. I was born in a poor brooklyn hood but moved to the same rent stabilized apartment in chelsea I still live. (it WAS the photography district where I moved to learn my craft) Most of the photographers and studios are now gone. My humble apartment used to be my home but now as part of the co-op I am just looked down on by many as a non-investor with no rights to an opinion about the building I've lived in longer than most of them It WAS my home, now their investment. For most their OTHER home is either in LI or UPSTATE where they drive to each weekend complaining about the homeless they must drive around.
10
When someone makes a mistake, there is an apology (which happened in this case) + corrective action from both parties.
Unfortunately, the later was not done correctly. Ms Rose failed to take corrective action that took in consideration the pain caused by the decorations. Besides removal, perhaps sharing her knowledge with the school might have been a positive action.
BUT also, the Community responded in an exaggerated manner - literally blaming anyone in the periphery of Ms Rose as culprits - and making self-destructive demands.
If we continue in this path, our communities will continue to fragment. We are becoming nothing more than mirror images of that Trump's side that we all despise.
9
The conclusion of this article demonstrates that this story is about the Power of Empathy. The conclusion is as follows:
"Ms. Key said in the process, she was learning. 'I have learned about the emotions and that gentrification is way, way more serious and way more traumatic than I knew before,” she said. 'I think I will learn more.'"
The following is an excerpt from a recent interview with Mary Gordon is an educator and the founder of ‘Roots of Empathy’ and ‘Seeds of Empathy’, two revolutionary educational programs based on the development of empathy and in nurturing emotional literacy from early childhood:
“Empathy is the ability to understand how another person feels and to be able to feel with them. I look at empathy as having a cognitive component which is perspective taking, but also an affective component, which is emotion. So, the two together, are required in my definition of empathy. Whereas many people consider cognitive empathy or perspective taking the whole package. And, to me the humanity of the affective side is required in order to really develop empathy…. The absence of empathy underscores violence and cruelty of all kinds."
One of the things that bothered me the most about this article was that Ms. Rose indicated that she did not realize the potent symbolism of a noose, at least here, in the US.
I believe, and this is just an opinion, that lack of recognition of the psychological impact of 200 years of slavery on people of color in this country. How slavery impacted the culture and behaviors of African Americans is never addressed historically or in the media and that, more than anything, is indicative of white privilege. We don’t think about a lot of things - because we don’t have to.
17
When slavery and the post-reconstruction lashback, which are the two of the dominant realities of this country’s history, are never taught or frankly discussed in schools, universities and society at large, there are bound majority of ill-educated Americans.
12
This person was born and educated in Germany.
2
Much ado about nothing. Having conversations about the ill effects of gentrification won’t do anything to stop them.
9
@RDA human kindness can never be overvalued. Everyone deserves respect even when they’re being priced out. Life is not a transaction and an account balance.
10
@RDA it is callous to so quickly and blithely dismiss the issues covered in the article. Putting oneself in the shoes of the people in this situation and having some compassion and understanding is a much more human approach.
4
I share your very shortsighted conclusion, yet I also understand that any potential good begins with making the effort to talk.
2
It’s fantastic that this dialogue happened, but saddening that the offender doesn’t appear in the ensuing discussion or solution. In order to create a racially and culturally tolerant society we need to create mechanisms for individuals to re-enter civic view and make amends, especially following honest mistakes and gaffes, which the article proposes might have been the case.
I would have liked to see, for example, Ms. Rose deciding that she needs to provide art scholarships to the community or to otherwise engage in public service to make amends. Ms. Rose declined to comment for the article, but I wonder if she learned anything and what the value of her learning might be to others. If she did not, that is saddening, as it seems she was perhaps the person with the most to learn from this.
6
@Ed Kohlwey , beyond removing the decorations and a verbal apology for offending local sensibilities, I don’t think she owes anyone. Seeing a picture that offends you because you mentally connect it to something the artist wasn’t even thinking about doesn’t do any actual harm, something that seems to get forgotten about. Losing your job for a misunderstanding with your neighbors, on the other hand, is real, undeserved harm.
6
Halloween is first and foremost for kids, perhaps adults could stay out of trouble by deferring to kids for their Halloween decoration ideas. A child's perspective is often illuminating, refreshing, naive, safe and fun!
22
Halloween decorations are over-priced and usually pretty moronic.
When I see feet and arms sticking out of people's front gardens, I think, Who are these people?
3
I witnessed my hometown of Beverly Hills change in a matter of months in 1979. The influx of Persians treated the locals (and the architecture) with disdain and a complete disregard for our "culture ". It was sad and disheartening to experience.
20
@Lorenzo Beverly Hills Oregon sounds like an interesting place populated with a good mix of cultures. I'm curious to learn how one treats architecture with disdain. Sneer at the buildings perhaps?
2
@jeffk It might be a reference to tearing down existing homes and replacing them with something uglier (in Lorenzo's opinion).
6
@jeffk By tearing down old historic houses (not big enough) and replacing them with gaudy, ugly, with columns slapped on the facades, marble-clad boxes. Anything Spanish tiled, wooden roofed, Tudor style wasn't ostentatious enough. Absolutely zero regard for architectural elements. Everything had to be large, white, with big reception rooms (and plenty of Ionic columns scattered around). If you haven't seen them, you can't grasp the hideousness. Beverly Hills has since put a moratorium in place against these McMansions.
5
Isn’t it interesting that the discomfort felt in Bed-Stuy by the legacy families as the neighborhood changes has a parallel in the white heartland of the US? There, the small towns are rapidly changing with an influx of non-white immigrants and longtime residents are similarly upset. Change is hard everywhere and it is difficult to find a balance where all identities are supported. It’s more difficult where the legacy community is already disadvantaged and vulnerable.
69
I think a less polarized casting of the view “yeah this happens to whites too” might be that “change is the only constant in a cosmopolitan society, and to have a cosmopolitan society we need to find respectful ways to recognize that change and value what is lost”.
All neighborhoods and cultures change, often in dramatic ways that create a sense of loss in a community that is fading. While it’s accurate that many of the cultural aspects represented in Harlem are more at risk in a global sense than white midwestern culture, it is also accurate to say that the local experience of whites in the midwest may be similar. I think to the end that this similar experience creates mutual understanding and empathy it is a positive one.
Wouldn’t it be wonderful if, for example, my white grandmother had developed an interest in the Harlem Renaissance based on a mutual nostalgia for the fading cultures of the 20th century. The more we can cast stories like this in terms of similarities rather than differences, all the better.
16
Agreed -the rate of demographic and sociological change this century is simply too much for the Homo sapiens to absorb with complete equanimity. If we are serious about achieving a much less race conscious society in long run we need to not accelerate these changes-they are already quite robust and destabilizing. A little humility and wisdom will go a long way; to wit, maybe we dont expand rent control, but we dont diminish it; maybe we dont change admission policies to Stuyvesant, but we dont over resource that school and dont expand the number of magnet high schools; in other words we are pragmatic about progressive agendas.
6
@Joseph those "nonwhite immigrants" are not erasing the heritage or culture of their neighbors. They don't close down their stores nor price them out of their homes. They don't lord their specialness over the longstanding residents. They fit in, work hard, and create their own culture with out looking to replace or erase others. That's the difference. You think native Brooklynites don't sit in diners and bemoan the old days? We do, but our resentment stops there, more like a shrug and sad resignation, "whaddya gonna do?" We don't form militias nor spread conspiracy theories nor march with torches. We don't blindly vote for leaders who stoke our resentment. We shrug, we kvetch, and we live and let live. The rest of this country could learn from us. But journalists don't come to our diners....
5
The decorations were awful beyond thoughtless. So I have a hard time understanding them with much sympathy. After that, however, it was handled pretty well.
I want to shout out ARTSHACK as being a plus in the neighborhood. When I am visiting Brooklyn I take my grandchildren there and am usually pleased that as white kids they are in the minority. That is how it should be in that neighborhood. The staff at ARTSHACK are kind and inclusive. It provides a much needed chance for children to learn that they are artists. We cannot develop a new generation of innovators without giving kids opportunities to make art. Thank you ARTSHACK for handling this as well as they could.
81
In 2018, the number of new businesses in Bedford-Stuyvesant had increased by 152 percent since 2000, the fastest rate of growth of any of New York City’s 55 census-defined neighborhoods. In the same period, the black population of the neighborhood dropped from three-quarters to less than half, according to census data.
This is the environment in which the drama involving Ms. Rose unfolded, and may have made the longtime residents more sensitive to what occurred. I am going to bet that many of those longtime residents urged their local politicians to attract increased investment into their neighborhood, to bring in jobs,services and an expanded tax base, and it looks like those efforts were very successful. Now there is resentment of those who brought the new businesses. It appears the longtime residents want the investment of outsiders to improve the neighborhood, but they don't want to share the improved conditions with those investors, and if the investors do live there, they are now being asked to take bias training to make them sensitive to the needs of the longtime residents.
I'm not aware of anything like this being asked of the black and Hispanic newcomers to the long time white ethnic majority neighborhoods in my home city, which changed from majority white to majority minority. Such changes are never perceived as a negative, but when a minority majority neighborhood is gentrified and becomes more white, that is perceived as a negative. Why the double standard?
92
@Frank Because black history in America is very, very different from white history. Because the black experience in America today continues to be very, very different from the white experience. All of us need to try to put ourselves in others' shoes if we are ever going to overcome racism in this country. Here in Oregon, there is a terrible legacy - where exclusion laws were enforced until as recently as the 1960s - which lives on in our excessively white demographics. Of course there is some hyper-sensitivity but it is very understandable. It does not and should not cut both ways.
80
Those are not parallel scenarios. The group that has had the lion’s share of power in a country is nowhere near exchangeable with the group that has had the least.
49
@Frank " I am going to bet that many of those longtime residents urged their local politicians to attract increased investment into their neighborhood, to bring in jobs,services and an expanded tax base, and it looks like those efforts were very successful." I doubt very much that the long time resident asked their reps to bring in outsiders for this. What they wanted was the programs that would have helped the people that have had to live with the issues of Bed-Stuy for the last 50 years. It doesn't help them to have people buy out their neighborhoods. That is gentrification, pure and simple.
13
Years ago, someone in my town installed a Halloween yard display that included a cowboy in a noose. Folks got upset. The head of the NAACP met with the homeowner and absolved him of racist intent:. He was trying to re-create a hanging scene from the Old West, not a lynching. After folks raised concerns, he altered the face of the hanging cowboy so that it was absolutely clear, if it had not been before, that this could not possibly be a black person. And then, everyone went on about their way, noose and all.
This is a good way, I think, for communities and neighbors to resolve differences. In both the case of the paper dolls and the hanging cowboy, there seems no evidence of racist intent. Yes, we should be cognizant of others, but nothing, I think, would have been gained by demanding that the swinging cowboy come down. In fact, quite the opposite. I could imagine bad feelings throughout the entire community if a display to which the homeowner had gone to some degree of trouble to create was ordered taken down.
This was before Instagram and Facebook and other social media. Ms. Rose seems a nice person. Did anyone, before organizing protests and plastering pictures on Instagram, think to knock on her door and explain the concern so that this might have been resolved in a kinder, simpler way?
Maybe corny, with Mister Rogers movie coming out, but that's what neighbors do. Too often, the internet, I think, is a neighborhood of make believe.
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There is so much hope here. I am tearful, but hopeful.
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@Sandra ... tearful? Yes. But why hopeful? This is a frightening display of mob social violence against a woman who made a trivial and inadvertent mistake.
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Nooses mean different things to different audiences. I agree it is taken offensively in this case and for that reason it is quite advisable to not present it. However, nooses were used to hang outlaws in the Wild West, thieves and other common criminals in Europe over the centuries, dissidents and prisoners of war in plenty of conflicts recently and longer ago and even ended Saddam Hussein. So the noose per se as a tool is not the root problem. It is the context of its use and ill-considered juxtaposition it poses too often.
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While I agree with you, in some cases, the old saying "When in Rome, do as the Romans do" applies. If you are moving into an area that is clearly different from where you are coming from, it would behoove you to learn about the new area and take the small steps required to integrate your uniqueness into the overall fabric of the area. There really is no need to overpower or upset the energy and culture of a place that doesn't need it.
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@Suburban Cowboy True. Which is it is important to be careful with public displays and to be mindful of your neighborhood. It’s just human decency to be a good neighbor. The swastika is a very important Hindu religious symbol but I’ve almost never seen it on a Hindu doorstep here in the US.
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“brown craft paper”
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This is a beautiful story in the right way to handle a changing times and a changing neighborhood. This is why I love NYC.
Two years ago in Denver, some fools innocently put up a sign in front of Inc Coffee Shop saying “Happily Gentrifying the Neighborhood Since 2014”. The store was located in Five Points, a rapidly changing lower income black neighborhood near downtown. I can only imagine what long time residents in danger of loosing their homes to the rising rents must have felt.
There was a public outcry, a public apology, and then business as usual.
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@Julie
There was nothing right about the mob carrying on after the woman was informed and took them down. Nothing at all.
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@Julie Those weren't fools. They were awful humans. A fool doesn't necessarily know what they do. I can't imagine that these owners weren't aware of their supremacy by making that statement. It's a very common Christopher Columbus mentality and what this article touched upon: white people moving into neighbors with rich history and legacy but assuming there was neither before they "settled."
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@KBronson
If someone from Guam had innocently posted swastikas on a house that sits across the street from a predominantly Jewish school, people would have lost their minds. You cannot pour salt on wounds that run this deep even if it was an innocent mistake.
This wasn’t a mob. It was a public discussion.
How I wish we could talk to each other.
To tell you you hurt me.
To tell you I’m sorry.
To ask you to help me understand.
I live in the roar of fear filled silence.
I feel hurt and I am so very sorry.
So very sad.
Help me understand.
Please.
Will you hold my heart?
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@Patricia
Thank you for this.
You likely put it out there in reflection of this piece.
But I'm hearing it in my own personal way, and it gets right to the heart of the matter.
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@Patricia Beautiful. Thank you for sharing. I wish I could write as well. Though you ate using your words with reference to the tensions described in this article, I too am finding a personal use for them. I will write your words on a prayer flag and hope for a brisk wind tomorrow.
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Well, you know what they say, for every buyer there’s a seller. The protesters might want to direct their anger at the families who have sold their houses, no doubt at a great profit, and are now enjoying their new lives elsewhere. Or do you want to pass a law that says they can’t sell their houses? Or that they can’t rent to certain people? Or that people who live in those houses have to decorate them in a certain way, and frequent local establishments a minimum number of times each month?
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@Thomas, you seem to be missing the point, entirely. Read the article again. This has nothing to do with buying or selling homes, it has to do with being respectful of your fellow human beings and aware of the history of your neighborhood and the consequences of your actions.
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Another article interviews the family that sold Ms Rose the home. Their grandfather moved from the south to escape lynches. It was an attempt to bring it full circle but I made the above connection too.
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@LWF No, the point is that nobody lynched anyone in the this episode, and it is time for people to move on, away from history and away from identity politics. Treat an individual person like an individual person. If you move into a neighborhood, you don’t owe anyone anything. Your house belongs to you. Bullies need to mind their own business.
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My mostly Caribbean neighborhood in Brooklyn is gentrifying at such a blistering speed that it will not look the same in five years. As a lawyer, a business one at that, I get that this is the way of the world and New York, in particular, given the constant need and search for space and given that there remain tons of real estate opportunities here. It is actually staggering how much development opportunity remains right here in the boroughs of NYC, but it still makes me sad that the neighborhood that I have known for 40 years is forever changing before my eyes right now. Life is a funny thing.
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And fifty years ago its complexion was not Caribbean and the same lament was valid I suppose by the antecedents.
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@Stephanie Hendricks : Why the surprise? Look at how quickly Harlem changed.
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I remember Coney Island and Canarsie undergoing a similarly disruptive transformation in the 1960's and 1970's. Long time white and immigrant communities were dislocated by an influx of new neighbors moving in to low cost city housing projects which were the rage at the time.
Bed-Stuy itself was the home of many Eastern European Jews before the war. That changed too.
Hell's Kitchen was a hardscrabble enclave of Irish Jewish and Italian families until it recently gentrified. Alphabet City ditto.
My point is that the Bed-Stuy community is experiencing what every community in NY experiences as waves of new residents find their way here, imagine something different for themselves and remake the neighborhood in their own image.
This story is heartwarming. Ms. Rose didn't 'get it' until she finally did. And the local community responded in a great way
But the community does not 'belong' to anyone in NY. That is one of the greatest things about NYC and our country. You are allowed to dream bigger than where you are born and move wherever you like.
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@Lkf Well said. I hit NYC 1973. Lived 20th and 8th ave.Paid $55.00 a month for a sink and a bed.Bedbugs stayed for free but took care of that by building a moat of tuna fish cans on the 4 bedsteads filled with insecticide the windowsill was my refrigerator.I moved up with hard work and was a foreman at 22 years. I had no family but I had ethics and morals. Worked for me.
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@Lkf , where's the "finally"? Looks like she apologized sincerely at once.
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@Lkf :" imagine something different for themselves and remake the neighborhood in their own image."
Yeah that occurred in my near east side Detroit neighborhood. Those pushed out by crime and racial violence were accused of "white flight".
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If you decorate your the outside of your house , windows,lawn with items that offend all of us, whatever combination of ethnicity we are( and we are a combination), whatever religion we are (or aren't), newcomer or older resident, one must be cognizant of how they will be perceived. Think before you put up a display that is visible to your neighbors.
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@Karen how about if you are the viewer, you think about the cultural blindspots of those decorating their house.
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@Karen
And if you feel offended, think before you act on those feelings.
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@Karen I would have thought that the vast majority of Americans would know better than to put up decorations including nooses. At least we now have one more who understands how offensive they are.
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Seems like some people need to be a little more aware of their window decorations. Others seem to need a little thicker skin. Come on people, we're New Yorkers - we're tougher and smarter than this.
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@Geno
It’s not weak or dumb to demand that racist depictions placed in windows directly opposite of a school be taken down. Anywhere else I may agree with you but the block where a school of children is located should always be held to a higher standard of conduct and appropriateness. There’s a reason cities impose lower speed limits and far tighter zoning restrictions in the vicinities of schools. Think of the children.
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@Geno
Really Geno “thicker skins”? If you had a sense of history or even walked in the shoes of families who had lost loved ones in the heinous manner of lynching, you might not blame people for being upset.
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@Geno thanks, someone needed to say that!
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From the article’s description of events, Daniela Rose appears to have been sincerely sorry for the window display. In a purely what-would-Jesus-do sense, Ms. Rose should be part of the solution in building bridges; not ostracized and shunned.
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@Jones As the child of loving and wonderful but often culturally clueless immigrants, I can testify that "not to understand how a noose would look" is actually entirely likely. I'm from Denmark, and had an illustrated children's book with a lovely drawing of a child who had been hanged for stealing shoes. Grimm's Fairy Tales make it to America because they are so mild. Much of children's literature in northern Europe used to be much grimmer.
Immigrants whose first language is not English also don't spend much time following Trumps Twitter feeds or the story of the week in the New York Times. They are vaguely aware of their new country's history, but if they are white, have nowhere near the consciousness on the utterly different experience for people of color here that someone who was raised in the US does.
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Welcome to one-strike-you’re-out-Brooklyn!
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@Henrik Kibak. I read the full and grotesque version of Grimms' fairy tales as an American child growing up in America. Just like swastikas are symbolic of a larger evil, so too are nooses. To make it seem like Europeans don't have symbols of a larger evil because their children's literature is grim and violent ignores that all groups have symbols of horrific acts. A person's skin color or culture or history is not germane here.
1
It seems to me, that as much of the polarization in America today is rooted in money as anything else. Gentrification and displacement are causing upheaval, and conflict can arise from unforeseen triggers. My daughter published a treatise on the same process here on Cape Cod, where locals are being displaced by seasonal home ownership. It's difficult to afford to live here anymore.
As a craftsperson, I would hope that in this case, a small pottery might be able to mend the wound, and offer some cohesion in Brooklyn. It's a tall order, but a lump of spinning clay, and the skill to control it is an apt metaphor for communities everywhere. I'm proud of my daughter. I've learned a lot from her. The caustic rhetoric coming from the White House seems to be infecting us all. Content of character speaks volumes.
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It is amazing that City Council members and real estate brokers are not a part of this essential conversation. Money trumps everything traditional and cultural, as I saw during the gentrification of my old Red Hook neighborhood. Homes are now lottery tickets throughout NYC, so get the lottery winners to involve the real estate market in the assimilation of new, wealthy landowners who may feel that after putting down $1,000,000 that they get to do what they want in their new residence. Maybe Bed-Stuy can establish an HOA -- it could be revolutionary in urban planning and a power-sharing device for people feeling disenfranchised.
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This is a weird parallel, but I play a silly little online game called The Simpsons Tapped Out. It’s based on The Simpsons and it’s very popular. The Halloween event is always a big deal, and they offer decorations you can use to decorate your town in the game.
One of the decorations is a Mexican Day of the Dead figure that is a tree with a skeleton hanging from it. I am from Alabama and I was horrified! No way would I put that in my town! To me, the obvious connection is to lynching.
I wrote about my horror on a fan webpage and lots of people wrote from the Southwest explaining this other tradition. Some said their grandmothers used decorations like this. All Soul’s Day is a colorful tradition of celebrating ancestors, but I’m still not putting those hanging men in my town.
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@Bamagirl
I was in Oaxaca for the Day of the Dead celebration this year (two weeks ago). Now this is just my reporting but did not see ANY skeleton representations around town with nooses around their necks. Since the figures represent departed loved ones it would strike me as strange to have seen any portrayed in that fashion.
I think your instincts are serving you well.
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@Bamagirl
Yes, they do that in Southern CA too for Día de Muertos.
Not being from here it freaked me and seemed offensive until a Mexican-American friend explained the tradition and meaning to me.
That is why dialogue always helps and it doesn't have to turn ugly.
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@Bamagirl
So YOU being horrified at the symbolism of a skeleton in a noose in a Black context can be used to stomp out MY history and traditions?
Typical.
Chicanos were created when the White Anglo Saxon Protestants that made up the United States invaded and stole our territory.
Chicanos had our language and culture suppressed and we suffered from Jim Crow segregation too but nobody seems to remember that because they only associate Jim Crow with the Blacks.
Many of our ancestors were killed when we were inconvenient to the White man, I guess you have not heard about the Porvenir massacre:
https://www.nytimes.com/2019/03/02/us/porvenir-massacre-texas-mexicans.html
Chicanos were lynched too but we don't get our panties in a bunch when we see nooses because to us the symbolism of a noose is much, much older than the last two hundred years.
I really hate it when certain ethnic groups seem to think that they were the only ones who suffered due to their treatment in the past. These groups need to get over it and realize that we are talking about negative HUMAN behavior that unfortunately crosses ethnic boundaries.
Talk about slavery and everybody thinks Blacks when there were slaves from all races.
Talk about concentration camps and everybody thinks Jews even though the Nisei were rounded up in the 1940s and Mexicans are being held today.
The "obvious connection" YOU made was to lynching, please don't be so narrow-minded to think only YOUR opinion counts.
10
Notwithstanding the productive discussion that ensued, the choice of noose decorations remains puzzling. Question, though: what about a traditionally white community or neighborhood that resents the people of color who are now making it their home? What kinds of objections could be raised? I don’t have an answer but it worries me.
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@Claudia
I think part of the problem is that in the traditionally white suburb you describe, black newcomers will be expected to assimilate to the surrounding culture. But in Bed-Stuy it appears that long-time black residents felt it was expected that they would be assimilated to the culture of the new arrivals.
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In the traditionally white neighborhoods of Flatbush, Fort Greene, and so on, newcomers in the 1960s were not so sensitive.
Rather than absorbing middle-class manners and values as social engineers had hoped, the boyfriends, sons, and grandsons of Section-8 recipients brought crime to once-safe places.
The fact remains that areas with architecturally significant townhouses, like Clinton Hill, Fort Greene, Bed-Stu, Prospect Heights, Crown Heights, Brooklyn Heights, Ditmas Park, Prospect-Lefferts, and Park Slope were built for the gentry.
Whatever happened after that happened.
I do not care about the color or creed of my neighbors; I care only that they are clean, quiet, and considerate. And I do not believe that hanging out and making noise is part of anyone's culture. It is inexcusably aberrant behavior.
32
Those are not parallel scenarios. The group that traditionally has had the lion’s share of power in a country is nowhere near exchangeable with the group that has had the least.
17
In the field of conflict resolution we often say that conflict is essential to change and growth, that good things can come from it. This experience seems to be an example of this.
One modest sized effort that we've learned can expand on the possibility of good outcomes is followup. It can often take things quite a significant step farther to arrange a reflection time some months or a year after an outpouring of energy like this. What did we learn from this experience? What has changed as a result? What good outcomes would we like to continue and expand? What negative outcomes could we address or reduce? What values about our community would we like to endorse moving forward?
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Intent is important but one's impact is moreso; accepting the reality that there are histories at play should be part and parcel of living in a society.
Consciousness and cognizance are more important--they allow us to be good neighbors, build and maintain diverse communities; otherwise, we are like 'baffled, prowling beast[s]' wandering through a maze of our family's and community's making.
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@James Siegel This is just what I was thinking, James. We are children, we grow, get jobs and chiildren of our own and want a place to raise them. We must intrude into a community already in place, already functioning. And here we come, youngish, eager, looking for a cheap place to live to fix up, walking our kids to school, maybe sitting outside on a stoop, trying to put ourselves out there. No one talks to us. No one is curious about us, or interested in our children, our legacy. . . We are seen as the interlopers. We so much want to be part of the community.We don't want to be alone. Will someone please look our way, say a word, draw us into the culture? We are good builders and helpers. We and our children want to participate. Sometimes we feel so shut out. It's difficult to work through isolation.
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@Sharon in
“ . . We are seen as the interlopers...It's difficult to work through isolation.”
The comments are very revealing although perhaps not as intended. As a person of color I would have to respond by simply saying—welcome to our table, have a seat. More simply put—this is the way people of color feel pretty much whenever they venture outside—we want to be seen except the danger is that when we are seen we are seen as a threat. And we all know what happens when the beneficiaries of the bounty of white supremacy feel they may be losing their share of the spoils of a long and hard fought war.
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@Bob R In a city hundreds of years old neighborhoods are constantly evolving and changing. The black inhabitants of this Brooklyn community were not the original settlers by a long shot, as over the last generation or two, they replaced the previous non-black inhabitants. Yet the question is not who owns the history of a neighborhood, but how well the community melds newcomers with the older residents. The clear over-reaction to this woman's Halloween imagery was more of an effort to punish non-black newcomers, than a cultural corrective. Those activists who wish to damage businesses that had no participation with the imagery creation shows the uglier side of the culture and race wars. For the sake of fairness and community harmony these fomenting people must be rejected.
8