Neighbors are outraged after a Michigan auto shop put out a Trump scarecrow for Halloween. Instead of putting everyone in a festive Halloween mood, residents are outraged and say that the display is racist and has taken things too far.
Read on and you can decide, but one thing is for sure – it’s very polarizing.
The scarecrow, which has since been modified to be “less” offensive, could be seen from the road and was featured in front of Quality Coatings, an auto body shop in Fowlerville, Michigan.
The village is having a scarecrow contest to draw business and attention to locally owned shops, but according to records, Quality Coatings is not part of the contest. So they did this all themselves, apparently.
The scarecrow is wearing a Donald Trump mask and is dressed in an all-green waterproof outfit, complete with hood, covered in fake blood. For some reason, there is a knife sticking out of Trump’s outfit, but it doesn’t appear that he was supposed to be injuring himself.
So far it’s not offensive, right? Just odd. Don’t worry – it gets weird.
The Trump scarecrow is holding an Obama mask in his left hand, attached to a long black rope. Under his foot is a squished Hillary Clinton mask.
It’s hard to not see the problem – residents are outraged, and can’t help but think the rope is supposed to be a noose.
Dave Huff is the owner of Quality Coatings, and when he spoke to a local news outlet, he swears that the scarecrow isn’t racist or politically motivated. Instead, the black rope is supposed to be a spine.
Yeah, that’s apparently better?
He says that the scarecrow is inspired by a move in the video game Mortal Kombat, where Sub-Zero does a “fatality” and pulls the spine from his opponent’s body. The black rope is supposed to represent Obama’s spine.
We’re not entirely sure how many mental hoops he had to jump through to make that one work.
The community of Fowlerville has made it clear that they believe Huff went way too far with his Halloween decorations this year. Quality Coatings has received more than 50 negative reviews on Facebook in the weeks since the scarecrow went up, all mentioning the Halloween Trump decoration.
It has been suggested that Huff lacks “human decency” to put up such a display, and others have called the scarecrow blatantly “racist”, suggesting that the company will only do a good job if you “have the right skin color”.
Huff hasn’t responded to any social media pressure, but he did remove both the Hillary mask and the Obama mask from the display since it has blown up, suggesting he knows the display was, in fact, too far.
When asked about his political leanings, Huff says that he didn’t even vote in the 2016 election.
