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.The two men — Joe Fischer, who was then a senior at the university and has since graduated, and Hunter Bush, a former student at Bluegrass Community and Technical College — were arrested in October after authorities found the effigy hanging from a tree outside the university’s Mines and Minerals Building. They were charged with second-degree burglary, theft by unlawful taking, and disorderly conduct. The grand jury dismissed those charges.
The best revenge is massive success. These two jerks will see Barack Obama every day for the next four years. Who's hangin' now?
4 comments:
I'm always caught between free speech and hate crime. If they didn't threaten anyone or mean it as a vote deterent, then they were just Hideous human beings not criminals.
Jamie - You may be right. Evidently the grand jury in Kentucky felt the same way...
I am sick of hate speech hiding behind free speech as though it is benign. When you create someone as less than you lay the ground work to do violence against them. A threat need not be explicit for it to be a threat. If you notice this hate speech is always directed at vulnerable members of society to maintain an unearned privilege. Had it been aimed at whiteness you can be sure that some law would be in existence by now. Saying that they have to look at Barack for 4 years does not negate the kind of damage that it does to the rest of the commuinity.
Renee - I feel ya' sista! Your response tells me that I need to do some more reading and educate myself on alternatives for punishing hate speech. If criminal justice system won't work, what will?
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