A friend of mine recently called the police to lodge a complaint about a Halloween display in her neighborhood: a life-size figure of the horror-movie slasher, Freddy Krueger holding the bloody, butchered body of a baby in his clawed hands. The police responded that the display was not illegal in any way. My friend, intrepid woman that she is, asked the officer, if the display had featured the murder of a black person, would it be considered publicly offensive then? The answer was, yes, since...