UPDATE: UK senior Joe Fischer and his friend Hunter Bush were
arrested for hanging a life-sized likeness of Barack Obama from a tree on the campus.
America is being poisoned by our own
'strange fruit'. University of Kentucky officials said an effigy of Democratic presidential nominee Barack Obama was found hanging from a tree on campus.
Lee Todd, the university president, said the effigy of the Illinois senator, who could become the nation's first African American president if he is elected, was first noticed by a professor riding his bicycle.
Todd said it is not yet known whether a student was responsible for the effigy and the incident is being investigated by the University Police Department and the Lexington Police Department. He said the Secret Service has been notified.
"
It's a very embarrassing situation that has happened on our campus, regardless of who did it," Todd said.
He described hanging the effigy as a "
despicable act."
"
We certainly believe in political expression, just not in this form," he said.
Villagers, unless you're living in the early 1800s out in the wild west and somebody stole your horse ... there is
NEVER a good reason to hang a fellow citizen in a lynching rope. Period.
Doesn't matter if it is Sarah Palin or Barack Obama. It is horrific image to promote in our country.
This nonsense must end. I hope that John McCain and Sarah Palin will stop the dog-whistle racism that leads their supporters to do such things.
I hope that the UK perps are punished sufficiently when they are found.
A grand jury in Lexington refused to indict two men who hung an effigy of Barack Obama on the University of Kentucky campus last fall, their lawyer told the Lexington Herald-Leader.
