Beyond Marginalized

On Monday, I wrote about a fuckneck in West Hollywood who hung an effigy of Sarah Palin from a noose outside his home as a Halloween decoration and defended it as art.

Yesterday, the Los Angeles County sheriff's department, via spokesperson Steve Whitmore, said that the effigy "doesn't rise to the level of hate crime," because it was part of a Halloween display—and also:

Whitmore said that potential hate crimes are evaluated on a case-by-case basis. If the same display had been made of a Barack Obama-like doll, for example, authorities would have to evaluate it independently, Whitmore said.

"That adds a whole other social, historical hate aspect to the display, and that is embedded in the consciousness of the country," he said.

Pack up your teaspoons, feminists! Turns out the institutionalized misogyny we've been busily combating is imaginary! What a relief.

Well, he's right about one thing, anyway—the "social, historical hate" toward women quite evidently isn't "embedded in the consciousness the country." Increasingly, I'm beginning to wonder if misogyny and the national consciousness have even been properly introduced yet.