No, but so what? Your claim is that it’s unlikely to occur to a left wing whacko that hanging up a noose would get people riled up over racism, right?
I don’t see why the percentage of non-blacks who are bigots and whacky enough to hang up a noose ought to be equal to the percentage of blacks who are whacky enough to stage a hate crime. At Columbia, the first number is probably very low.
Sigh. There are many lessons to be learned from the Duke Lacrosse case. One of them is “Don’t rush to judgment.”
Here’s an idea: Withold judgment until the facts come in.
Had Prof. Constantine made any recent statements that were controversial enough to have ruffled feathers in Redneckistan? An incident like this is usually the tip of the iceberg of a much larger group of people.
For every noose I’d expect to see hundreds of angry e-mails responding to whatever Ward Churchillian remarks she’s been making.
Are you saying that statistics of past racial events might legitimately be taken into account by armchair commentators discussing a new race-related event, or perhaps by an investigator deciding where to allocate resources?
Or are you saying that such statistics are enough to rule out possibilities?
In my view, they are very different things.
How are you using the word “distrust” here? Two possibilities come to mind.
Are you saying that police and others who are in a position to consider a report of a crime should treat it seriously and act on the possibility that it is true? If so, I couldn’t agree more. Anyone who completely distrusts and therefore dismisses a crime report is rushing to judgment, and that’s a bad thing.
Or are you saying that people who report crimes should be automatically believed without question, and no other possibilities should be considered? Is so, I couldn’t disagree more. Anyone who completely accepts a crime report at face value and therefore dismisses all other possibilities is rushing to judgment, and that is (also) a bad thing.
Thank you, Shoshana, for this…
…and for this:
I will say that I kinda understand how *one * of the thoughts that someone *might * have would be “Gee, I hope this isn’t a hoax” (especially people who apparently have an incurable case of Tawana Brawley on the brain), but to have your *first * thought–your very first thought–be “It’s probably a hoax”? What the holy fuck is wrong with you people?! Goddamn! (And no, I’m not discounting any possibility that something like this *could * be a hoax–lots of things are possible, right?–but I’ll be damned if I’m going to go there right out of the gate.)
–Li’l Pluck–Black, gay, Jewish man (and current Columbia student) who’s quite familiar with all manner of dismisal and negative treatment. The “my first thought is it’s probably a hoax” folks ought to thank your lucky stars that you aren’t. Not, mind you, that you need my encouragement to do so.
P.S.: I haven’t finished the thread yet. Bad form, I know, but I wanted to post this thought–and, I think, the following thought–before I lost it. My apologies.
This is, I think, debatable. Or, rather, what **Der Trihs ** said earlier. (Thanks, BTW, for that, D.T.)
Lynching? No. But, given my day-to-day experience, I honestly don’t believe that we’re at the point where we can say with anything approaching certainty that a sizeable portion of the White population *doesn’t * have racial issues.
Wanna borrow my shoes for a mile?*
*This is not to pick on you, by the way. I get the sense that your intentions are not malicious, but I also get the sense that you really don’t know the “others’” side of the coin.
Damn, I hate when I do that! :smack:
“D-i-s-m-i-s-s-a-l,” folks. I meant to type “dismissal.”
I guess I’m drawing a distinction here between “racist individuals” and the socialization that leads to institutional racism. Even with the racial issues that exist in the US, I don’t believe we’re at a level where hanging a noose is considered an acceptable form of expression by more than a tiny fraction of bigots. On the contrary, hanging a noose meant the enforcement of an unjust social code in the Reconstruction south, and its prevalence during the Civil Rights era indicated a clear political message. I just don’t see that here, mainly because these are scattered and isolated events that have clearly spiked in the wake of the incidents in Jena La.
So I have to wonder if news accounts of such noose incidents tell us anything more than “racist idiots exist”? If that’s it, there’s nothing new there, and I suspect it’s turned into a national story for its sensational impact. That’s fine–we have whole supermarket checkout racks filled with magazines and newspaper dedicated to sensationalization of “news”–but I think it’s counterproductive since it just encourages more copycats, which in turn provokes greater public outrage, which provokes more copycats…
Here’s the nub of it: For those who see a widespread racial component linking these noose incidents, what specific, underlying problem do you think they are symptomatic of? “Racism” is too general an answer; I’d appreciate something more specific like “Lack of/ineffectiveness of diversity education with respect to racist symbols,” “the general indifference to black culture in the US” or “a coordinated plan to intimidate black leaders in society”. It doesn’t have to be just one, but IMO it needs to be something more than “racists exist”.
My current answer to that question is “a peculiar need among many in US society to elevate a personal statement by inducing a media circus,” and I’ll bet that in three months–once the media has moved on to some new unimportant outrage–noose incidents will be back to the “handful a year” the SPLC chronicled before Jena was splashed across the national news. The events in Jena were certainly shocking, and as they reflected a clear social problem in that part of Louisiana (e.g. the court decisions regarding the white and black teenagers in the associated criminal cases) deserved to be in the national spotlight. I was certainly shocked that such blatant institutional racism existed in the US in this day and age. But I guess I’m not that shocked some yahoo thinks hanging a noose is a good way to get some attention, and I don’t really think we should give it to him.
No way: the few racist incidents I’ve been the recipient of makes me not want to experience any more. But I wonder if the outrage over the noose incidents will not only cause more copycats but also more anti-white racism, which I obviously have more of a first-hand interest in stopping.
And then anti-white racism could cause anti-black racism, etc. etc.
I must say, however, that counterproductive or not, if the incidents are real they deserve the full amount of outrage against the perpetrators as they have been receiving.
American Psychological Association’s response. The response will be printed in the New York Times and other major newspaper outlets.
I’m still not picking up on any broader racist context that might explain why this particular professor was targeted–in NYC no less. Has she been involved in run-ins or feuds with a local racist faction? The incident bespeaks of raised hackles, so there must be some indication as to whose she might have raised.
I don’t know of any incidents, but she teaches classes about racism and diversity, and she is very well known in psychology.
Too late to edit–
For a sense of her work, here are the entries from the first page of her work of Google Scholar. Most have co-authors:
Examining Multicultural Counseling Competence and Race-Related Attitudes among White Marital and Family Therapists.
Racial Identity Attitudes, Self-Concept, and Perceived Family Cohesion in Black College Students
Challenges to the Career Development of Urban Racial and Ethnic Minority Youth: Implications for Vocational Intervention
Predictors of satisfaction with counseling: Racial and ethnic minority clients’ attitudes toward …
Addressing Spiritual and Religious Issues in Counseling African Americans: Implications for Counselor Training and Practice
Students’Perceptions of Multicultural Training in Counseling Psychology Programs
The behavioral health care needs of rural women
Black Adolescents’ Racial Socialization Experiences: Their Relations to Home, School, and Peer Self- …
The Intersection of Race, Ethnicity, Gender, and Social Class in Counseling: Examining Selves in …
Social Desirability Attitudes, Sex, and Affective and Cognitive Empathy as Predictors of Self-
Agreed.
I don’t think that you could ever convince me that there are adults, of at least average intelligence and relative mental well-being, who were raised and educated in this country–especially in the latter half of the 20th century–who *aren’t * aware of the meaning and power of racist symbols like the noose, the burning cross, or the swastika.
I understand what you’re saying, but actually, I kinda think we’d be better off if folks really *were * “indifferent” to Black people in the US. Then maybe we wouldn’t have to worry about job, housing, and educational discrimination, police brutality, etc., etc.
I wouldn’t use the word “coordinated” in the sense that we normally do, but I certainly don’t think that the kind of thinking that goes hand-in-hand with racial intimidation occurs organically and without all manner of either subtle or explicit encouragement. And you’re right: not to intimidate Black leaders, but Blacks, period.
While I won’t dispute that some of these perpertrators crave the media attention that these types of incidents typically attract, the real bottom line is, I think, the need to remind Black people that no matter what we achieve in life, we’re still just niggers. I think I can safely speak for most Black people when I say thanks, really, but we don’t need to be reminded of what many Whites think of us. And just to be clear: I am referring not only to the outliers who hang nooses or physically attack Blacks or yell “go back to Africa, nigger” from passing car windows. I am referring to many average, everyday, “what, me, racist?” White Americans, who, frankly, “frighten” me much more than the Klan or the Aryan Nation could ever hope to do.
We can only hope, we can only hope.
Well, yeah, but the point is not to give attention to the yahoo, but to highlight the fact that this kind of ugliness still exists. Hopefully, if we keep doing that, we’ll get it right one day. Not holding my breath, but I can still hope.
(bolding mine)
Not to nitpick (so I hope you don’t take offense), but “in NYC no less”?
Hell, there’s a reason why many older Blacks (and some of us younger ones, too) say that the South is anywhere south of the Canadian border.
Well, the first thing that I would say is that, IMO, anti-white racism (by Blacks) is most definitely not the cause of anti-black racism (by Whites). Not, mind you, that I believed that you were saying otherwise. I’m just trying to say that, even within the context of the whole noose point/counterpoint scenario that you suggested, anti-black racism would continue to exist just fine of its own accord. 
Now, as for outrage over the noose incidents being the cause of anti-white racism? Well, no…and yes. IOW, most of the Blacks I’ve known who’ve been angry about White racism–and justifiably so–could never be described, by any definition of the word, as anti-white. I have, however, encountered my share of Blacks who’ve held attitudes that could certainly fall under the rubric of “anti-white”. I would say, though, that even most of those (“most” is strange to use here since the number of these kinds of people I’ve encountered has been almost negligible) could be more accurately described as (for one thing) really, *really * angry people who’ve suffered from racism and don’t know quite how to channel their frustration. At any rate, I’d say that most of the (mentally stable) Blacks out there who are anti-white didn’t become anti-white in a vacuum, y’know?
More from Columbia Teacher’s College…
I think President Bollinger is beginning to see that overblowing these incidents is exactly the wrong approach; it just encourages more of the same.
They ignored this in Jena and dismissed it as a prank; I don’t think that helped anybody either. It’s true that people will copy a lot of things that get negative attention, though.
I think we’d be well advised to take them with, at least, a big grain of salt.
Slight nitpick.
I didn’t feel like signing up and registering to read the article you linked to, but if it’s about the anti-Semitic graffiti found in a restroom stall, that incident, according to an e-mail message sent out to students by President Bollinger, occured in Lewisohn Hall, which is on Columbia’s main campus and is not a part of Teacher’s College.
Lewisohn Hall houses, among other things, the administrative and financial aid offices for CU’s School of General Studies (its undergraduate division for non-traditional students). It, like some other buildings on campus, is not (during the day, anyway) a keycard-restricted building, so anyone from the community (and from outside the community) can get in.
As for Bollinger’s reluctance to broadcast the offenders’ message(s) going forward? I’m not sure what to make of this, but I wouldn’t be surprised if he gets an earful from at least some of the students about it. There’s actually going to be a meeting between administration and students late this morning (as you might imagine, the “X” one in several days). I can’t go b/c I have an appointment elsewhere that I shouldn’t cancel without compelling reason, but even if I *were * able to attend, I might opt, for reasons that I can’t get into right now, not to.
Anyway, I just wanted to clear up that bit about Lewisohn.
ETA: And “overblowing”? I just want to point out that that’s *not * how Bollinger characterized publicizing these kinds of incidents, and I *seriously * doubt that he would.