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posed to be a picture of a Witch: Ugly green face, yellow teeth, black
pointy hat and a big wart on her nose. It was displayed on the wall beside
the Traffic Section’s counter. I took a moment and spoke to the civilian
supervisor in the Traffic Section about this decoration. The supervisor told
me that if it disturbed me she would take it down. I told her that it
perpetuated a damaging stereotype that I had been fighting to correct for
years. The decoration came down. Later that day I happened to be passing through the lobby again during a
break from classes. I found that the picture of the ugly green “Witch” had
been put back up. This time I took the decoration down myself. As I only had
a few minutes before I was to be back in class, I decided to take it up with
the inspector later. On the next classroom break I was approached by an angry senior police
constable in the hallway outside the classroom. This officer worked at an
office job in the Traffic Section. It turned out that this picture of a
“Witch” belonged to him. He couldn't understand why this picture annoyed me.
He told me that he understood that I was a Witch and that I did not resemble
this cartoon caricature that he had put up in the lobby. Yet at the same time
he did not understand why this picture would upset me. He said that his
family had decorated his home since his childhood with images of this sort.
He didn't seem to understand how his use of this stereotypical image could be
damaging to me and my religious community. In his opinion it was a simply a
Halloween decoration, and only meant in fun. Eventually this traffic officer
agreed to put the decoration away and I returned it to him. Later that
afternoon I was contacted by his inspector. Obviously this officer had
contacted him after our encounter. I went to the inspector's office and
discussed the incident. The inspector was very anxious: He was concerned that I was planning to
take further action. I assured him that I had settled the matter with the
persons involved and considered the matter concluded. At about the same time the social workers from the Ministry for Children
and Family Development that I collaborated with in child abuse investigations
presented me with a sign for my desk that read “Witch Parking: Violators Will Be Toad”. I found it amusing and put it on my
desk. A few days later this sign went
missing. I learned from one of the
social workers that she had seen one of the other police officers in the unit
take it down. I found it stuffed under
a computer in the office. People often fear differences, which is why they classify people who
don’t fit into their expectations with terms like “weird.” I can illustrate
this with a personal experience: In March of 1994 I did a speaking tour in
Arkansas and Tennessee. This was immediately following a recent homicide
arrest involving teens supposedly involved in Satanism, Magick and
“Witchcraft.”A lot of hysteria had been created by this event. The backlash
was being felt by the local Pagan community. The local Unitarian Church had
asked me to speak to various community groups in this area in an attempt to
dispel some of the fear and misunderstandings. The Unitarian Church sponsors Wiccan
institutions such as CUUPS (Covenant of Universalist Unitarian Pagans). The first public presentation that I did was in Little Rock: I gave a
slide presentation on the dissemination of urban legends about Satanism
followed by an open Wiccan circle. This was held in a Unitarian Church. About
100 people attended the presentation. Many of the audience appeared nervous
to me at first. At least one person attending was a local cop (who was
probably checking us Wiccans out). There were no obvious indications that the
press had attended. By the end of the event everyone was very much more
relaxed: Nothing really out of the ordinary had happened to alarm them. The next evening I gave a public presentation of the same slide show in
Jonesboro, Arkansas. The atmosphere there was entirely different: The local
Wiccans refer to Jonesboro as “Fort God.” A few months earlier a legal,
peaceful protest march by about 70 Wiccans had taken place here: They were
protesting the closing of Magic Moon, a local metaphysical book store, in June of 1993. This peaceful protest
ended prematurely when a hostile crowd of fundamentalist Christians ten times
larger showed up. Police from 7 jurisdictions had been called in to extract
the Wiccans from the crowd. Two people broke through the police line trying
to get at the Wiccans. One of these persons was armed with a firearm. Both
suspects were detained and disarmed by the police. All of the local
television stations aired coverage of this incident. Earlier, owners of two Jonesboro venues had cancelled my speaking
engagement due to fears of the adverse consequences of allowing a Pagan
speaker to use their facility. I’m sure that they had this earlier violent
protest in mind when they did so. The third venue that we eventually used for
my presentation was a large local coffee house. It was full to capacity.
Mindful of the armed counter protesters of a few weeks previous, I wore body
armor and was assigned two large body guards. There was a large media scrum
armed with cameras and tape recorders outside the venue when I arrived. The
entire front row of the audience consisted of members of the Jonesboro Police
Department. Tense and hostile are the words that I’d use to sum up the
situation here. Fortunately everything went fairly smoothly. The following evening I repeated my slide presentation at the University
of Memphis, in Memphis, Tennessee. This event took place in a large lecture
theatre in the department of psychology. It was a very pleasant experience.
Everyone seemed quite comfortable with the topic. There were a few media
persons with cameras present, but no media scrum. The crowd was three times
the size of the Jonesboro event the previous evening. Yet everyone was
relaxed and civilized. Here within a few hours driving distance of one another were three communities with entirely different takes on Wicca and Neo-Paganism. The smaller and more isolated the community, the greater the fear and intolerance I experienced. The larger and more cosmopolitan, the |
Samhain, pg 2
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Dispatches: Volume 1 No. 6 Samhain/Calan Gaef/Einherjar 2006 |
