An Oklahoma homeowner has removed a display of nooses on his property after public backlash from those who interpreted it as a racism.
According to KOTV, the noose display was up for a short while. A homeowner said they put them up to deter thieves, and it wasn’t intended to be racist.
The nooses, which were visible from Highway 75 in Okmulgee County, were placed in a tree with a sign that read: “It’s best not to be hanging around this area after dark.”
Okmulgee County Sheriff Eddy Rice said the homeowner removed the nooses after negative attention. He said the display wasn’t illegal.
KJRH-TV reported that the homeowner said he’s been a victim of crime in the past.
But several drivers were shocked.
“When I looked over there, I was like, ‘are those nooses hanging there?’” driver Terrance Reed Sr. told KJRH, adding that he pulled over to look at the display.
“If you think of a noose in America, it don’t represent anything about but what used to happened to African Americans,” he said. “He got the right to do what he wants to do, he’s got a right to feel what he wanna feel, but I got a right to be angry about it too, and I’m angry.”
Another driver agreed.
“It bothers me. It’s humiliating,” said Dennis Varner. “It’s discrimination, and America shouldn’t put up with it.”
A woman who apparently knows the homeowner commented on the KOTV report, saying that he’s a “good man who was just trying to scare the jerks off his land,” and she added that people who have called him racist have “never met the man.”
