It's amazing how much this country still struggles with its ugly racial past and difficult present. A recent unfinished Manhattan store display by Baby Gap shows a tree with what looks like two nooses hanging from it. Fresh off of Black History Month, the image immediately conjured images of black men being lynched.

Some people who passed by were immediately outraged and posted the image on Gawker while trying to get a response from Gap.

Baby Gap said the photo, which went viral, was taken before the display was finished. The final display showed two children innocently on a swing. The two knotted pieces of rope were used to hold the wood plank of the swing seat in place.

"This photograph was taken when the store was finishing a visual display for a swing," said Gap spokesperson Renate Geerlings.

I'm not sure how I feel about this one. In one sense, I'm glad that people are still sensitive to public displays that may be racially insensitive, but it seems superficial.



After all, lynchings are one of this country's most shameful scars.

After the Civil War, lynching was used frequently by whites in the South to regain control over the black population. During the so-called "lynching era," from 1880 to 1930, there are more than 2,800 documented lynchings and probably many more undocumented incidents. More than 400 white men and women were also lynched, but the overwhelming majority were black men lynched by white mobs who sometimes cut off body parts as trophies.

The Tuskegee Institute puts the number of lynchings from 1880 through 1968 at more than 4,700. Almost 3,500 were African Americans but almost 1,300 whites were also lynched.

The lynchings were a group form of public terrorism that forced black people into horrible working conditions and prevented people from voting while stifling anyone fighting for equal rights.

So the fact that people are still sensitive to the symbols of lynching is good. Challenging the blatant symbols of racism is also important because of how powerful media, such as advertising, is in spreading messages - both positive and negative.

However, sometimes we react too heavily to these outward incidents of racism. Someone famous says something or some advertisement is offensive and all hell is raised.

But when it comes to tackling the embedded, not-as-visible symbols of racism, such as our criminal justice system, job discrimination or this country's troubled school system, there just does not seem to be as much enthusiasm.

What needs to go viral is a push to end the inequity in the application of the death penalty. The economic disparities in this country should also spark more outrage. Those things are as much of a noose around the necks of some people in this country as the real thing.