Satire/Rosie Sorenson

What to Serve at a Hanging

Just when you think you can’t be any more horrified or outraged by a Republican, along comes Cindy Hyde-Smith, who I swear is a Brenda Leigh Johnson (The Closer) impersonator. Frozen smile, syrupy sweet accent as she shoves a shiv into your undercarriage.

In case you’ve spent the past few months curled up like a fetus (and who could blame you), you may have missed the fireworks in Mississippi.

Ms. Hyde-Smith, former member of the Mississippi Commission for Agriculture and Commerce, had been appointed by Governor Phil Bryant in April of 2018 to fill the Senate seat of Thad Cochran after he resigned. During the special election in November, she was challenged for the Senate seat by Democrat Mike Espy, former Secretary of Agriculture under Bill Clinton.

Cindy is of the white persuasion. Mike is African-American.

Cindy let it be known at a recent campaign rally that her idea of hanging out with a supporter was to go to a public hanging with him and sit in the front row. (Politico.com, November 20, 2018). She didn’t say, but she does seem like the type who would bring a picnic lunch to a lynching. Somewhere in some Mississippian’s dusty attic must reside a guidebook on What to Bring to a Hanging. Fried chicken and other finger foods, I would imagine. And, of course, pralines and sweet tea. Perhaps a papier mâché piñata in the form of the hanged man, the striking of which would release hundreds of party favors: tiny rope nooses, miniature hoods, replicas of body parts. The usual celebratory items.

Off to the side, in a striped tent, there would be a barker wearing red suspenders and a white straw hat, calling out for volunteers to get switched for $5.00 a whack to raise funds for the KKK. The barker could be seen thrusting up a willow branch, stripped of its leaves and buds and whacking it across his palm, crying, “Come on, now, sons, our KKK needs your support. You got Confederate blood in you. You know you can take it. It’s for a good cause.”

Onlookers surround the barker, but no one steps forward until one young woman nudges her husband and says, “Come on, Tom, don’t be chicken. Show ‘em what you’re made of.” Tom’s face turns measley red as his eyes slink around the crowd, noticing all the taunting looks. He steps slowly forward toward the barker, bends over and flinches as the sharp thwack reverberates through the crowd. His wife hands the barker a $5.00 bill. The onlookers let loose a rebel yell. (Smithsonian footage https://goo.gl/ABgb3T). Tom limps back to his place in the crowd. Cindy Hyde-Smith snickers behind her hand.

I don’t ‘spose she’d have been so sanguine if at a rally of his supporters her opponent Mr. Espy had nodded to a man in the crowd, and said, “If he invited me to the gang-rape, murder and dismemberment of Cindy Hyde-Smith, I’d be in the front row.”

No, I don’t ‘spose.

Cindy won, 54% to 46%.

Rosie Sorenson is a humor writer in the San Francisco Bay Area. You can contact her at: RosieSorenson29@yahoo.com.

From The Progressive Populist, December 15, 2018

Populist.com