Obama effigy found hanging from campus tree

[AnAnonymousDemocrat]

Source: MSNBC

NEWBERG, Ore. - Students and school leaders at a small Christian university expressed outrage Wednesday at the discovery of a life-size cardboard effigy of Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama hanging from a tree on campus.

A custodian at George Fox University discovered the effigy early Tuesday and immediately removed it, President Robin Baker said. University spokesman Rob Felton said Wednesday that the commercially produced reproduction had been suspended from the branch of a tree near Minthorn Hall with fishing line around the neck.

The hanging of the effigy around the neck is seen as racist symbolism because it harkens back to lynchings of black men by white mobs, especially in the U.S. South, decades ago. Obama is aiming to become America's first black president.

"We will not tolerate such displays and condemn it in the strongest terms," Baker said. "George Fox University is committed to becoming a place that more broadly represents the Kingdom of God — a place where students from diverse backgrounds come together to live out the teachings of Jesus in our world."

Read more: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/26872774/

[seemslikeadream]

1. It was a crime scene and shouldn't have been touched till the police arrived

[BlooInBloo]

2. (shrug) I would fault someone more for seeing it and leaving it....

than someone seeing it and taking it down. a LOT more.

[seemslikeadream]

3. The police could have arrived in seconds

[stillcool]

4. I know..

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=174x6135

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_topic&forum=132&topic_id=7170273

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_topic&forum=389&topic_id=4077633

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_topic&forum=389&topic_id=4079594

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_topic&forum=389&topic_id=4078899

[aquart]

5. "Christians," huh?

Descendants of Roman soldiers with a box of nails more like.

[struggle4progress]

10. "... Founded by Quaker pioneers in 1891, the college is firmly rooted in the Scriptural call for

justice to roll like a river and righteousness like a mighty stream. The Quakers, who were persecuted, even executed on American soil for their beliefs, led the Abolitionist movement in the United States and ran the underground railroad ...

Students and faculty .. perhaps a hundred or more .. came forward and stood in solidarity around George Fox president Robin Baker as he addressed a chapel service ...

'We absolutely cannot hate those around us and say we love God,' <the college president> told the crowd. 'It is not possible.' ..."

http://www.oregonlive.com/editorials/oregonian/index.ssf?/base/editorial/122230410553990.xml&coll

[Frank Cannon]

12. How did a Quaker school turn into a racist, fundie nuthouse?

:shrug:

[wvbygod]

13. Why is OR host to bigots?

Until it's narrowed down to a "Christian" student that did the deed we may have to just
condemn the whole state. </sarcasm>

[Lydia Leftcoast]

16. Read farther down--Most students and the faculty/admins. were appalled

Nothing like jumping to conclusions.

[Coventina]

19. I know, it's incredible, isn't it?

:eyes:

This place is so embarrassing sometimes...

[QC]

30. Any excuse for a good hatefest.

Why make do with Two Minutes Hate, like those poor, deprived folks in Oceania, when you can have 24/7 Hate like we do here?

[offog]

6. Creepy! So much for "subtle racism".

[Name removed]

7. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[Toucano]

8. Pathetic.

Weak minds and no souls.

Christian university indeed.

[wvbygod]

14. Weak minds

Only such could assign guilt to a party without proof. When in doubt...blame a christian.

[Toucano]

21. Throw them all in the lion's den!

Circumstantial evidence is evidence, and blind denial is blind denial.

[Lydia Leftcoast]

23. And you obviously didn't read the article

or my comments (as someone who used to live near the town where the incident took place).

[Toucano]

24. What are you referring to?

It's a school that teaches bigotry. Documented fact.


Do you really want to hang your Christian "Rainbow of Diversity and Tolerance" on George Fox University?

[Lydia Leftcoast]

25. It's socially conservative but NOT racist

Read the entire article.

[Toucano]

26. Did you write that insipid article? Don't be daft.

I don't get what you think is so special about that article.

There's a whopping 21 black students out of almost 1700 enrolled and you expect me to believe there is not a single racist among them capable of this stunt? Six black employees out of 478? Yeah, that broadly represents "the kingdom of God".

The school teaches bigotry in the name of God. It may not be their intention to foster a climate that produced this (and it could have happened in a secular school just as easily), but the fact remains that you can't preach bigotry against one segment of humanity and expect it to contain itself there.

[Lydia Leftcoast]

27. I have no love for George Fox College

but having 21 black students out of 1700 is about normal for colleges in rural Oregon, given the entire state's history of racism. There were times when the secular college I taught at had no American-born black students, just exchange students from Africa and the Caribbean.

The perpetrator may have been a student and may have been a townie.

I'm just not going to blanket-condemn the college. Are you going to blanket-condemn everyone at Oregon State, where they also had a fake lynching, or at Reed (Reed!) where some students put up a hanged effigy on campus and there was a controversy over whether it was meant to portray a lynching?

[Toucano]

29. Okay. That's cool.

If you go back to my original "Pathetic: Weak minds/no soul" post, I wasn't saying anything about the school or Christianity.

I simply said the person or people who did this have weak minds and no soul. Then I got dragged into this whole "anti-Christian" thing by wvbygod.

It makes no real difference to me if it was a townie or a student or staff member. It's a pathetic act of a weak minded, soulless person.

Cheers, Lydia!

[harry_pothead]

9. Yet another reason..

..I'm glad I'm an atheist.

[Lydia Leftcoast]

18. Read the article, damn it

The students and faculty as a whole were appalled.

[LanternWaste]

28. Yet another reason...

Or, just as validly, "Yet another reason I'm glad I'm not a college student..."

Six of one, half a dozen of the other and all that...

[marshall]

11. Sounds like voodoo to me

Were there pins sticking in it?

[Lydia Leftcoast]

15. Here's a fuller account--it's not the whole school, not even close

NEWBERG -- (snip)
A custodial crew at the 3,355-student Christian university found the Obama likeness hanging by fishing wire from a tree at 7 a.m. Tuesday and tore it down before students arrived for classes. A sign taped to the cutout said, "Act Six reject," referring to a scholarship program for Portland students, many of whom are minorities.

President Robin Baker, standing with dozens of Act Six students and student leaders in front of a packed auditorium Wednesday morning, urged students to show the incident has no place in Christian ideals.

"We absolutely cannot hate those around us and say we love God," he said. "It is not possible.

"Yesterday was not a good example of what it means to follow Jesus," he said.

http://www.oregonlive.com/news/index.ssf/2008/09/racial_incident_rattles_george.html

I used to live near the town where George Fox College is located. They're part of a branch of the Quakers that is deeply conservative in behavior--and thus attractive to fundamentalists for its "wholesome" atmosphere-- but just as devoted to peace and justice as other Quakers.You can be assured that the college does NOT encourage racism.

I taught at two secular colleges in Oregon. At one of them, we had a series of incidents in which someone left threatening notes on the dorm room doors of African-American students and on the office doors of Jewish faculty members. We never found out who did it, but the administration and faculty reacted quickly and made it clear that bigotry had no place on the campus, and there were no more problems.

Even though there are people here who would just love to blame this nasty incident on religion, I'm more likely to blame it on Oregon, which was a hotbed of Ku Klux Klan activity in the 1920s and 1930s and had Deep South-style segregation into the 1950s.

[Coventina]

17. Apparently, reading comprehension skills are lacking around here

In spite of the university's condemnation of the crime and its immediate reaction to it in which they included African American students, George Fox University is a racist, fundie institution.

"Act Six" which the criminal referred to in his/her/their attack, is a program run by GFU to give scholarships to inner-city Portlanders, mostly African Americans. This was an attack AGAINST the university, not an attack BY the university.

[Lydia Leftcoast]

20. It's even possible that the culprit was a townie

I knew someone whose husband wrote for the Newberg paper and who was horrified at the things that people said openly about African-Americans in Portland and Latinos who worked in the nearby farms.

[wvbygod]

22. Likely a white supreme trash type

I'm just pleased nobody has blamed it on a transient from WV passing through OR. Small things...