Holy linguistic bullshit, Batman! "Noose" does not equate to abuse!

The BBQ Pit
1

Racism is an ugly thing. So is zero tolerance and hyper sensitive hand wringing whiners who have turned this country ass over tincup. I’m all for action when one person assaults another, damages their property, or commits a tangible offense. The problem is that ‘offense’ is now a catch-all term for anything somebody doesn’t like, or remotely smells like that.

Today’s case in point comes from the Kansas City area, where a soon to be Eagle Scout was suspended because, when asked, he admitted that he knew how to tie a noose, but wouldn’t, because you could get in trouble for that. A black kid who overheard the conversation told a teacher he was offended. :rolleyes:
Kid, I’m gonna bet any number of black folks who went through the strife of the 1960s in pursuit of civil rights would whap you upside the head and tell you to grow a set.

2

Meh. I’ll withhold my judgment until we hear from someone other than the boy’s mother. Since she’s the sole source of information in the linked article, I suspect no small amount of bias.

3

“Someone asked if anybody knew how to tie a noose and Travis did admit he knew how to tie a noose,” Kim Grigsby said.
Travis’ mom said her son is almost an Eagle Scout, he knew how to tie it, but told his friends he wouldn’t because you could get in trouble for that. Later, a black student on the drum line told the teacher he was offended.
“Travis was accused of using a racial slur for saying the word ‘noose.’ Then he was suspended for 10 days,” Kim said."

If that’s truly what happened, then on its face it does sound ridiculous. Then again, I can imagine something like this:

“Hey, Travis, you’re good with knots, right? You know how to tie a noose?”
“A nigger necktie? Sure, I can… aw, hell. I didn’t know that black kid was in the room.”

4

“Noose” in itself isn’t a racial slur and I’d hope that any sane administrator would see that, so my money’s on Vinyl Turnip’s scenario- the way he said it and the context it was said in were more ambiguous.

5

This, is accurately conveyed, buries the needle on the bullshit meter.

Really? No one is aware of any racial tensions? Even after someone complained about a “racial slur?” Then what did those guys get suspended for?
And what about this?

What a bunch of maroons.

6

Hmm, the article mentions a pre-existing environment of racial tension among that group of kids, which was addressed by the band director. The article also mentions that another kid was also suspended during the same incident, but fails to explain why. One might reasonably assume that he was the kid who asked how to tie a noose, but who knows? Thanks for the in-depth reporting of this incident, Fox News!

So, yeah, it’s completely implausible that two students might decide to act like dicks by loudly joking about tying nooses, after their group had recently been reamed out for too much racially charged conversation. That sort of behavior never occurred at my school, Lord knows.

I’m sure the band director and other authorities realized that the kids were just innocently tying up their band equipment (with nooses, which is of course the most practical knot for such a task according to Boy Scout training), but still decided to suspend them both just for the hell of it, completely out of the blue. Thank heavens MyFox Kansas City was there to give us nearly all the mostly complete details of this incident.

Perhaps we’ll be lucky and some of those black folks will deign to speak for themselves on this topic. The civil rights movement, of course, was noted for its wacky comic routines involving nooses.

7

Exactly. The article is so absurd that taking it at face value says more about the OP than the state of political correctness in America.

8

“Racial tension” pretty much defines the KCMO and Lee’s Summit school district, which are some of the absolute worst school districts in the country. I’ve posted before about why I had to stop volunteering to guest lecture at middle schools in that area…and I’m not going to rehash it as no one cares.

FTR, I’ve personally heard testimony from actual teachers in that district of things that make the OP seem sane by comparison. So while I in no way vouch for the veracity of this specific story, I’ve had first-hand reports of far, far worse ignorance.

9

Well, you really shouldn’t have featured quite so many nooses in your guest lectures.

For example, most lecturers are content to direct their audience’s attention with a laser pointer, instead of waving a noose around.

Your lucky jacket, laboriously handcrafted by Venezuelans from hundreds of tiny nooses, was probably also a strike against you.

Don’t even get me started about your little ventriloqual sidekick, “Noosey von Noosealot.”

And honestly, was “NooseMania! The Noose-rific Guest Lecture Series!” even an appropriate title to begin with?

10

What? Danceswithcats flies off the handle and posts batshit stupid story with biased source soon to be debunked. I never would have seen that coming…

11

So “noose” has become a racial slur? That does it…I’m never playing Earthbound again!

12

The thread title has a Cochrane-ish air to it…

“If he just said noose, there’s no abuse!”

13

If any nooses would have been present, they would have been around my neck.

Imagine a middle school where every door has armed security guards standing there, with an attitude that makes the most dour TSA screeners look like Puff the Magic Freaking Dragon. Now imagine the first thing they tell you is “don’t leave ANYTHING in your car, 'cuz the kids will break in to get it.” When you ask why they don’t watch the cars, they laugh.

Now imagine that the main entrance to the school has a full x-ray and metal detector combo, set on “scream if you find a paperclip” sensitivity, and that you and half a dozen senior Engineers from a respected local company are having to partially strip down - all the while there are the catcalls of the students, who clearly are allowed in the halls between classes.

Now imagine that you get led to every classroom by armed guards, who somehow don’t want to take on the students lounging in the halls, probably because the testosterone-shooting “boys” are bigger than the guards. You go in and are introduced by a teacher, facing a class that is in open rebellion. While the teacher tries to calm them down, unsuccessfully, you try to go into your 5-minute intro of what an Engineer does. But it’s hard to hear, because the kids are yelling and war-whooping and even play-fighting in the back of the room. The teacher and two guards decide that the best thing to do is to stand at the front of the room and bark out “SHUT UP!” every 20 seconds.

When you try to show then some practical examples of how Engineering helps us in society, you get asked questions like “Why I got to go to school?” and “Where you live? What you driving? Tell us where you live!” The funniest thing, I guess, is when you ask someone from the class to come up and draw what “power” means on a whiteboard. And someone comes sauntering up, draws a rough sketch of a coffin with a stick-figure laying in it, then another stick figure with a handgun firing down into the coffin, turns around and says “That POWER!” The class erupts in cheers, and from that point on you try to talk but someone turns on a big ass blaster (they allow those past the x-ray machine???), then turn to the teacher, who looks at you and shrugs.

This is one example; I did it for several years, until I finally found that everyone else had quit out of fear for their lives, and I was damned if I was going to go back by myself. Besides, I lost any idealism I had; as far as I was concerned, they could all burn in hell, and I’d be the Chief Engineer of Fires O’ Hell Unit 666, stoking the flames and cackling like a mushroom-tripping Greek Fury.

Oh yeah, I could feeeeeeeeeeeeel the rewarding joy of teaching. Now I only teach college students and paying clients.

14

What’s a blaster? Or is it an ass blaster? Either way I’m a bit lost.

If the furies were on mushrooms, wouldn’t they have been a bit more mellow? Maybe if they combined them with a bit of roid rage or something, but it seems like they would have needed more of an upper as well. Coke, perhaps?

15

Presumably a giant radio that plays (c)rap music.

16

Exactly. Back in the 80’s they used to be called “Ghetto Blasters”, and possibly still are at times. In the 90’s (when this happened) I heard that started being called “Blasters.” For all I know, they’re called “Chuzzwuzzlers” nowadays.

17

I guess they might be. I’ve never taken drugs so I’m little aware of the effects of some of them. I was thinking more along the lines of crazy maniacal laughter, rather than anger. Maybe it was a bad analogy.

18

And no doubt, any number of colored folk back in the 1920s would have told you to keep quiet too. Of course, they would have been saying that because colored folk who got uppity ended up getting hung by white folk.

The fact that America has moved from killing black people to making jokes about killing black people is progress but I don’t think it means we can declare racism is over.

19

I call them “boom boxes.” Probably many other folks still do, too.

20

"Smithers, find a musical frequency on the Marconi, would you? Or are they called Teslas now?