Let me start by saying that I would never dream of defending these acts; a noose is a clear symbol of threat to bodily harm in general, and given the ugly history of lynching in the US it is one particularly charged with the notion of killing someone over race. Nevertheless, I wonder if turning up the outrage on things like this is counterproductive.
I submit that in most cases the perpetrators are kids or young drunks looking to cause a stir. There may be some individual racism attached to the act, but I think it’s more a general hatred born of personal frustration rather than a notion of the clear inferiority of other races.
Furthermore, although the act of hanging an innocent man is clearly brutal and unjust, the real horror of lynching was that it was an accepted social practice in parts of the American south; this, in fact, is what made it more heinous than murder. As terrible as these nooses are, I don’t think they carry the same symbolism as a noose hung in the reconstruction-era South because no one today would believe the threat was backed up by an established racist social code. And while I concede the dragging death of James Byrd Jr. is a fair counter-example, in that case the perpetraitors were quickly rounded up and 2 of the 3 sentenced to death–hardly an example of a community accepting the practice. Furthermore the ideas these bastards acted on were a result of indoctrination into white supremacist prison gangs during previous terms of incarceration–again undermining the notion their ideas are a significant undercurrent of mainstream society; the problem certainly needs to be dealt with in the penal system, but I just don’t think the prison reflects society at large.
I’m very conflicted on this, since I personally think anyone who uses a noose to intimidate an African-American is committing a vile and indefensible act of agression. However, I’m concerned that over-emphasizing these incidents implies a deeper level of institutional racism than there really is, and worse, encourages addle-minded losers looking to stir up attention by giving them a demonstrated means to provoke outrage. I think the number of copycat crimes in the wake of Jena underscore this point, but I really would like to hear from other dopers on this, in the hope of clarifying my own opinion. Thx:-)
I disagree. Racism is still quite strong in America.
I strongly disagree. Rightly or wrongly, many people - especially black people - would believe it. There are a great many people who would assume that the “justice” system would drag it’s feet, ignore, or otherwise let slide a racist assault or murder. Probably accurately, many places.
Would you feel more threatened if I hung a noose in your yard, or if I sent you a personal letter stating that I wanted to kill you (while making no mention of race)?
That’s exactly the point of my original question. I don’t doubt having a noose hung in your yard is a threat, but I wonder if exasperated outrage coupled with high-octane news coverage is the proper response.
You can’t know for sure if these incidents are the work of bona fide racists; hoaxes perpetrated by the alleged victims; or real life trolls who just want to jerk peoples’ chains a little bit.
If I were the police, I would be asking this Columbia professor to account for her whereabouts on the day in question.
People need to be a little skeptical when these supposed incidents occur. They need to ask themselves if somebody is trying to manipulate them. Anyway, I’m pretty confident that there isn’t a KKK chapter at Columbia.
I certainly don’t think you should be “excoriated”, either roundly or squarely, simply for mentioning the possibility that an alleged hate crime might turn out to be a hoax. But I’m surprised to hear that anybody encountering an allegation of racial hate crime in America would immediately start considering whether it might be a hoax, even before thinking “Wow, how sick and hateful” or something along those lines. I mean, it’s not like the hoaxes significantly outnumber the real racial hate crimes.
But it’s not as if you can’t do both. When I hear, for example, of a wife being murdered, I will think both “that must be awful for the husband” and “there is a decent chance the husband did it” in the first few seconds.
I see what you mean, T-SQUARE. If “my first thought is…” is being used loosely to mean “pretty soon after hearing about such an incident I start wondering whether…” then yeah, it doesn’t sound so strange.
I feel similarly to Shodan. My impression is that an Ivy League school like Columbia has a lot more left wing whackos than right wing whackos.
In terms of graffiti type hate crimes, I doubt anyone knows that for sure.
I bet if you studied it, you would find that victims of graffiti type hate crimes have a much higher likelihood (compared to the general population) of having had a history of psychological problems before the incident.
That’s a tough call to make. Depends on how personal the letter was I suppose. At the very least I have no doubt that my letter wouldn’t make the news.
?? Even if your impression is correct, Columbia University Teachers College, where the incident occurred, is not the same thing as “Columbia the Ivy League school”. TC is affiliated with Columbia but is an independent institution, the descendant of the 19th-century New York School for the Training of Teachers.
Are you seriously saying that you consider it more likely that a black TC professor put a noose on her own office door as a hoax to get publicity than that some anonymous racist nutjob perpetrated this stunt as a Jena copycat crime?
It’s easier to get furious over something like a noose on campus than to address societal racism or our own prejudices. And that’s not just because people are lazy, those are legimately hard to deal with.
As far as the ‘faking’ possibility… I do wonder why it’d be anyone’s first impulse, but it could be true. When I was in college, there was a similar incident that was faked by the alleged victim - but that’s whiteboard grafitti on a student’s door (and police apparently never believed him), not something in a Teacher’s College. I don’t suspect the victim at this point, that strikes me as a little paranoid.
According to an AP report (seen in Chicago Tribune), there are security video(s) related to the incident that the school has refused to turn over to the police.
Possibly, although (a) most such policies, IME, contain one or more exceptions that allow the institution to choose to turn over information to the police when a serious crime has been committed; and (b) if that were the case, one would expect Columbia to cite the policy when asked for comment.