To say that racism, or at the very least, racial insensitivity, can be found here in western Maryland is perhaps a whopper of an understatement. Every once in a while something happens that reminds one and all of this sad and depressing fact. The city of Frederick hung three dummies from a tree at a city park as part of a Halloween program. From a distance, they looked like actual people hanging from the tree.

To some, the dummies hanging from the trees reminded them of when black men were hung from trees by white southern supremest groups. The practice was commonly referred to as a lynching.

Though I don’t necessarily believe that whoever thought up this display was trying to recreate a lynching, I don’t understand what it has to do with Halloween.

Guy Djoken, president of the local National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) chapter, requested that the dummies be removed from the park. Republican Mayor Jeff Holtzinger refused saying that Djoken was only trying to drum up publicity for himself.

A quick check of the Frederick News Post comment section shows that Holtzinger is not alone. Some of the comments:

• “Gives the “race hustlers” something to do.”

• “My goodness, lets get Jessie and Al on the phone. Let’s make sure we have all the race baiters in court for this one. Get a life.”
• Guy Djoken is just like Obama, they are born in another country, come to the US, and try and run things, but are failures.
• “Hey…they just had a story on the news about BLACK BEAR season opening in Maryland. I guess the NAACP idot will have something to cry and complain about tomorrow. Why can’t they just go back where they came from if they are always offended about something. What a bunch of crap”.

Why can’t we all agree that hanging dummies from a tree is not the best use of city resources?  To me, this just seems like a no-brainier.

Life is full of hard questions.  This is not one of them.