{"id":845,"date":"2021-05-05T10:25:16","date_gmt":"2021-05-05T17:25:16","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.newsmolo.com\/EDC\/2019\/2021\/05\/06\/column-what-a-fight-over-a-noose-says-about-the-coming-clash-of-red-and-blue-california\/"},"modified":"2021-05-07T09:40:34","modified_gmt":"2021-05-07T16:40:34","slug":"column-what-a-fight-over-a-noose-says-about-the-coming-clash-of-red-and-blue-california","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.newsmolo.com\/EDC\/2019\/2021\/05\/05\/column-what-a-fight-over-a-noose-says-about-the-coming-clash-of-red-and-blue-california\/","title":{"rendered":"Column:\u00a0What a fight over a noose says about the coming clash of red and blue California"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n
\n
\n
\n
\n
\n
By <\/span>Erika D. Smith<\/a> Columnist <\/span>May 5, 2021 <\/span> Updated\u00a0<\/span>9:57 AM PT<\/span><\/pre>\n<\/div>\n<\/figure>\n<\/div>\n
\n
\n
\n
\n
Mike Saunders thought the fight was over.<\/p>\n
For almost a year, he\u2019d made it his mission to persuade the city of Placerville \u2014 perched in the remote Sierra foothills, not far from Lake Tahoe \u2014 to change its official logo from a noose swinging from a tree.<\/p>\n
The noose, he\u2019d explained again and again with uncanny patience, is a symbol of hate and violence toward people of color. In Placerville, or as the locals call it, \u201cOld Hangtown,\u201d let\u2019s just say the majority of those who were hanged during the vigilante justice era of the Gold Rush weren\u2019t white.<\/p>\n
And yet, many in this overwhelmingly white and conservative city resisted, arguing that the noose was merely a cultural and historical symbol, and had nothing to do with racism. Meanwhile, Saunders, who is Black and liberal, was hit with a barrage of racist taunts and threats.<\/p>\n
When I interviewed him last summer, Saunders expected that his campaign against the noose would succeed \u2014 eventually. And in mid-April, he was proved right when the Placerville City Council voted unanimously to change the logo<\/a>.<\/p>\n
\u201cNoose down!\u201d he texted me at the time.<\/p>\n
What Saunders didn\u2019t expect was that, two weeks later, the same City Council would vote unanimously for a resolution to allow the city\u2019s nickname, \u201cOld Hangtown,\u201d to continue to be used on signs, like the massive one that greets drivers along Highway 50.<\/p>\n
\n
\n
\n
The fight to retire Placerville\u2019s noose should serve as a warning, in this time of support for Black Lives Matter, that change will not happen quickly.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
Mayor Dennis Thomas said the resolution was necessary to head off a \u201cslippery slope that it\u2019s part of this whole grand scheme of taking down everything historical in the city.\u201d<\/p>\n
Then again, this is Placerville, where a mannequin that many locals affectionately call \u201cGeorge\u201d still hangs from a noose on the side of a downtown building.<\/p>\n
The sequence of events has left Saunders trying to make sense of it all.<\/p>\n
Beyond the obvious racism involved in celebrating extrajudicial hangings, he has come to believe what happened is also a reflection of a deep-seated \u2014 if irrational \u2014 fear that has taken root in Placerville and in other pockets of red California that they are about to be taken over by blue California. paranoia over a supposed invasion of liberals, that has only grown during the pandemic as remote work has become more prevalent and some have moved inland to escape increasingly high housing costs in coastal cities or settle in to a new way of life in rural resort cities<\/a>. …<\/p>\n
\n
from Erika D. Smith<\/span><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/article>\n<\/div>\n