Obama Hanged in Effigy at Christian Campus

The Oregonian reports that a cardboard effigy of Democratic Presidential candidate Barack Obama was found hanging from a tree on the campus of George Fox University in Newburg, OR:

A campus custodial crew discovered the cutout of the Democratic presidential nominee about 7 a.m. Tuesday. Crew member Katlyn Search, 21, a George Fox senior from Battle Ground, Wash., said the cutout was hung by fishing line from a tree near Minthorn Hall. She, another student on the crew and their supervisor took down the cutout and reported the incident to the administration. Search said Obama cutouts can be purchased at a local supermarket.

The cutout was accompanied by the words "Act Six reject." Act Six is a scholarship program that was established two years ago and is aimed at including more low-income and minority students in the George Fox student body. Students are chosen for their leadership potential; all receive full scholarships.

The reaction from one student was particularly wise:

Another Act 6 student, Vanessa Wilkins, 19, of Hillsboro, said she felt confused as well as angry. But she added that she is focused less on finding whoever put the display up and more on "addressing the issues" that person has.

"This creates all these doors for us to be able to talk about" issues that people normally would avoid discussing, she said.

It is a sad fact that a thing like this can still happen, but there is hope in that beautiful presumption. The idea that someone who would evoke such a horror is but a fraction of a minority bespeaks some kind of progress. Nevertheless, it stirs far less forgiving emotions in me.

When I heard this story, I immediately thought of Emmett Till, Matt Shepard, and Brandon Teena. They are among a cadre of ghosts who inform my conscience. The person who hung that cardboard cutout might not know who any of them are, which would help to explain the act.

Emmett was a fourteen year-old boy who was tortured and murdered in 1955. He was visiting relatives in Mississippi, and being from Chicago, didn't know that whistling at a white woman was punishable by death.

Matt Shepard was a 21 year-old college student who was tied to a tree near Laramie, Wyoming, and fatally beaten. Matt's crime was being gay.

Brandon was also 21 when he was raped and murdered by two men in Lincoln, Nebraska. Brandon was a transgendered male. His story was the subject of the film Boys Don't Cry.

There are thousands of stories like these, thousands of ghosts that haunt our national conscience. I think that these three have stuck with me because I related to each of them in very personal ways. They are my brothers, my sons, they are me.

My brother is a transgender activist in Georgia, and if not for a combination of courage, luck, and intelligence, he could have very well ended up a martyr like Brandon. There is a chilling dehumanization that courses through the stories he has told me. Eric Rudolph bombed a club that he and I had shared drinks at.

I have a son who is just a little bit older now than Emmett was when he died. Again, I can't imagine the grief of his family, or the loneliness and terror of his final hours. My oldest son is not quite Matt Shepard's age, but he has just gone off to college, too.

I would like to think that the person who hung that cutout did so out of an abject ignorance of the full measure of its symbolism. As Vanessa said, perhaps this incident will result in some enlightening conversations about it. She's a better person than I am, because this just made me angry when I read about it. We should all try to be better people.