As the Jim Crow Flies

"If I thought they were insulting I'd have never brought them from Atlanta. I picked cotton [as a child], and what little I remember, I think [the pictures] had cotton [in] them. I guess it just reminded me of a day I don't want to go back to, but I just didn't see anything offensive. I know I have things probably more offensive hanging in my house."

Kallinen is suspicious. "First they get the only black employee in Baker's court to take the blame. Then they get a throw-down African-American judge just when they need him. Is it possible? I guess anything is scientifically possible."

Benton says he has no recollection of seeing the paintings in his staffer's office but bristles at the inference he's covering for a fellow Republican judge. He wonders why attorney Ray sat in the jury room the entire day and never mentioned the artwork to the judge.

"This is a lawyer simply trying to make a story. It's only calculated to get attention for himself and to embarrass one of my colleagues." The judge says his staffer has assured him it was not art anyone could be reasonably offended by, and "I take it as the gospel truth."

Ray explains that both he and his client were offended by the artwork, but did not raise the issue because Judge Baker was mediating the proceeding.

"My client, an African-American, asked me not to say anything because he was trying to get his case settled. He's paying me, so I had to abide by his wishes."

In a brief statement, Baker put a period on the controversy by declaring that "the artwork has become a distraction to the court's business, and it has been removed."

The Jim Crow Museum of Racist Memorabilia at Ferris State University in Big Rapids, Michigan, is dedicated to educating people about the corrosive effects of such art. Museum policy bans children from viewing the objects in the collection, and even adults are assigned facilitators to explain the contexts of the works.

The Insider e-mailed photos of the paintings in question to David Pilgrim, the museum curator and a Ferris State sociologist. He notes that the question of whether some black people own or like the art has no bearing on its content. In fact, Pilgrim says, black collectors have some of the largest displays of Jim Crow art and often claim it gives them a sense of how far racial relations have advanced.

"I hear that a lot," says Pilgrim. "For our purposes, it wouldn't matter who created, distributed or sold the art. We would be more concerned about what the image is and how it is impacting people."

The fact that the art was immediately removed from Baker's court once it came to the public's attention indicates to Pilgrim that even the judge saw the problem.

"Is it possible that all the people involved can be so innocently naive to the meanings behind these things? In many cases like this, when someone raises the issue, people look at it and decide that [displaying the art] wasn't such a good idea."

While Pilgrim allows that the Baker court pictures are on the mild end of the spectrum of the art in his museum, he does not believe they are appropriate for display in a government building.

"If it's something that belongs in my museum or that I would gladly have in my museum, it's something I would consider racially offensive…I think those things definitely belong not in a jury deliberation room but in a place like mine."

If Bailiff Wright needs a new place to hang his art, The Insider suggests he contact Pilgrim through www.ferris. edu/news/jimcrow.