Strange Fruit

doesnt look racist to me.

it just looks stupid. it's a stretch to make it racist. sometime too much imagination can be a bad thing.

john

I think the first one is racist and in poor taste. I think the 2nd one is just in por taste.

This is glorification of both racism and murder and has no place on this website. This is absolutely horrifying. This country is so stinking rotten, it makes Nazi Germany look advanced. Again, Indymedia, please remove this incitement to murder from this website.

"This country is so stinking rotten"

Yeah, I agree, and what irks me most is the prevalence of reactionary jerk-offs who can see something like this with absolutely no context and not think to ask "what is this about" before leaping to judgement.

Question to Mike Rhodes: WHAT IS THIS ABOUT?

i think the "rotten" comment was meant to be sarcastic. but who knows. welcome to the internet.

maybe it is just a reflection of the reality that we are surrounded with all the time. what with a history of corporations and even smaller business owners not caring about what happens when they abandon, abuse, or incarcerate whole groups of people.

it's not the image thats the problem, it's the truth of struggling everyday to not be a slave in the U.S.a...

because for some folks the only options are minimum wage(aka a sweatshop), the military, or prison(aka legalized slaves)...

read: 13th amendment
Section 1. Neither slavery nor involuntary servitude, except as a punishment for crime whereof the party shall have been duly convicted, shall exist within the United States, or any place subject to their jurisdiction.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_Constitution/Amendment_Thirteen

For sure, this will not make anybody to go out and kill people. However the first thing I remembered when I saw the first photo is the hangup of black people by the kkk, so I would find it a very bad joke and kind of painfull for many people (including me).

If you think it's racist, stop fucking whining and just go there and cut the thing down.

Talk is cheap...

Tho the scary and horrible are displayed at Holloween, i have not known it to be a time of celebrating murder. Given the climate of racism, violence, fascism and hate that prevails in this country, this sick display is par for the bigoted course. So Fresno must have a history tied to such action. Wouldn't hurt to find out. History repeats itself when those with conscience fail to act. I am sorry to see this going on. The Chevron dealer is displaying the philosophy of the corporation's treatment of Indigenous peoples in it's quest for oil. When will we stop it? When? Guess we are all too dependent on oil to act. This guy's station should be boycotted out of existence.

Of course everywhere you look in Fresno you are surrounded by reminders of what could and should be, and like most cities you can trace the history of white flight from the city during the civil rights movement hey day...and now continued attacks to crush what is left of the black, south asian, and latino communities on the outside.

So even when we are not reminded of this history by very strange displays at gas stations; we are reminded of it all around us if we pay attention to the what is happening on the streets, in the fields, and in the jails and prisons that surround us down here...

did anyone notice that the mask is a white guy?

It does not matter what race the effigy is, it is horrific and the image is especially so to people of color who have historically been lynched in more recent times. White people have been hung as well. It is a disgusting image meant to sicken and terrify, not educate. When i saw the photos, i thought the guy looked latino. Rather ambiguous. The whole thing is disgusting as is all atrocity.

Okay, so let's say this attention-getter (based on present info, that's all it seems to be) is in extremely poor taste

But to call it "an atrocity" is just mind-boggling styooopidity. There are real no-joke tragic issues out there that could use some of your indignation. I shit you not

There are too fucking many people really getting shot by cops, shooting each other, and dying unnecessarily to get all hung up on some fools at a gas station.

Do something that fights against the REAL, rather than the imagined.

no offence to anyone, but i think the pic is cool. i mean, not the one with the body but the one with the note/sign.

PS this is not the owner who wont take the sign and the body off.

regards,
A

Though I myself don't celebrate Halloween, I've seen mannequins hung in trees in several locations as a Halloween decoration, so this is no suprise to me.

I think someone with a chip on their shoulder seen it and suddenly wants to make a mountain out of a molehill. This is not something that anyone would do if it wasn't a result of the Halloween season. People don't put out gory decorations any other time of the year, if this was done in July for no particular reason... then you have something to worry about.

How this is more offensive than the guy who dresses up as a hack/slash murderer, or the guy who walks around with the fake axe in his head, or the various other gory costumes available during Halloween? It isn't.

People need to stop reading into things. I don't agree with the whole Halloween celebration, but I don't take personal offense to their participation.

Step off the soap box, it's ruining your perspective on things.

its just a fake stuffed thinie how could any one see that as being racist?

If this occured anywhere other than the U.S., it wouldn't be an issue.

People just look for things to be sensitive about, and we do call these people "pussies". Sadly enough I assure you I can pinpoint the stereotypical people who'd have a problem with this.

And the same ignorant assholes will never figure out that no one alive today has anything to do with what was done in the past. I'm white, and if my great-great-grandfather hanged black people, so be it. I didn't do it, nor do I have any intention to. And if these people weren't so wishy-washy and stupid, maybe they'd realize this.