[Update] Carnival parade floats with nooses, in Germany, WTF?

10% of the carnival floats at a local parade featured nooses with dangling puppets, so what is going on?

Adult males, scarecrow style out of straw, were hanging from the back of two floats. A small piñata style pony dangled from a third float, making a total of three out of 30 floats.

What, if anything, does a 10% public violence rate mean?

Really not much, we would think. Northern European carnival is, after all, a time during which you can be different and transgress some boundaries, and to our knowledge nobody classifies carnival clubs in Mainz or Cologne as militarist because they have "guards" in bright 18th century style uniforms, some with wooden toy guns.

If you must know, the puppets had zero racially or enthically discernible features, and nobody asked us - as obvious Americans - to check the nooses. Hey, you, can you check if the noose it correct, now that would have been alarming.

A further case in point is that one of the dangling males and the hanging pony were on floats with an American Western Saloon theme featuring rough boards and SALOON in big, surprisingly authentic looking letters. Loud music and grinning German cowboys added to the overall non-threatening atmosphere. The other strung up puppet was on a prison themed float.

We'll keep a tally for next year, though.

[Update] The hanging pony image.

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