Hanging Nooses: Hate or Hoax Upsurge

Susan Smith, Charles Stuart, and Jennifer Wilbanks have one thing in common. They are the poster names of whites that foisted off racial con jobs on the nation. They shouted that a black or Latino man committed murder or mayhem to cover up their heinous crimes or their personal neurosis. They knew that finger pointing a black or Latino for wrongdoing sets off panicky bells and whistles in police stations, titillates the prurient juices in press rooms, and stirs public anxieties. Racial hoaxes almost always fall apart but they work for a time because they play hard on the stereotypes, myths, and fears about blacks and Latinos.

But racial hoaxes can cut both ways. The flurry of hanging nooses around the country may be a case in point. Hate crime experts and civil rights leaders say, and the media spin is, that the nooses are a white racist backlash to the firestorm of black protest over the Jena 6 case involving black teens in Louisiana accused of battering a white student. Others go further and issue dire a warning that that the nooses are a grim sign of a new racist hate upsurge in America.

A hanging noose found dangling on the office door of Madonna Constantine, a black race relations expert at Columbia University, is supposedly proof positive of the hate wave. The noose on her office door and at other places may well be the handiwork of a loony with a racial ax to grind or it may just be a put up job by a few silly, clueless, students who think stringing up or planting nooses is good for a few yucks and a brief media titter

However, there's another painful possibility. One or more of the nooses could be a hoax to make a point about racism. More than a few writers on the CNN website in discussing the Columbia University noose discovery had no hesitation in pointing the blame finger at blacks. While others simply said they didn't believe that the noose had anything to do with race.

There's no evidence that the hanging nooses are anything other than what they appear, namely sick, racial digs. Yet, the fact that so many believe that blacks are capable of pulling a dumb prank to get attention, or play the race card can't and shouldn't be cavalierly chalked up to white ignorance or bigotry. While the overwhelming majority of those that racial wolf shout to cover misdeeds or for kicks have been white, some blacks have screamed it too.

In her book, the Color of Crime, University of Florida professor Katheryn Russell-Brown, found that blacks perpetrate one in six racial hoaxes. The reasons the blacks commit hoaxes aren't totally different than those of white hoaxers. Both are angry, resentful and play hard on stereotypes and fears--that whites are racist, and violent, and that blacks are menacing and violent. The hoaxes encase the worst of black and white fears about each other.

The Duke University rape case is a near textbook example of how those fears can boomerang. The female black college student that screamed that she was raped at a frat house by white Duke Lacrosse players ignited angry protests and a momentary deep soul search about racial and sexual victimization of blacks. As her story unraveled into a tissue of contradictions and lies, the soul search quickly turned into anger, rage, disgust and racial backlash not just against an on the make prosecutor but at black leaders that accepted her story at face value. Police and public officials felt they were played and may well be far more cautious about rape allegations made by blacks against whites. That wasn't the only blowback. The Duke case was flung in the face of civil rights leaders as the danger of overplaying the race angle in Jena or anywhere else a black is victimized under muddled circumstances. City and school officials in Jena screamed that the infamous noose hanging incident at the high school was not racial since black students also stuck their heads through the noose.

At Historically Black Grambling University, school officials hit the roof when pictures of a young girl being hoisted by a black adult into a noose hanging from a tree hit the national newswires. As it turned out, five professors dangled the noose from the tree to make a dramatic point about the torment of race relations. The professors may have been well-intentioned, but to have an adult stick a child's neck into the noose turned the horror of lynching into a cheap theatrical farce. The terror was trivialized and lost. It sent the even worse message that blacks are perfectly capable of stringing up nooses too.

Hanging nooses no matter whether they dangle from a tree, an office door, or are planted in a Coast Guard cadet's bag, are still a hideous symbol of America's racial past. That's hardly the stuff of fun and game hoaxes no matter who put them there or why they did it.

Earl Ofari Hutchinson is an author and political analyst. His new book The Latino Challenge to Black America: Towards a Conversation between African-Americans and Hispanics (Middle Passage Press and Hispanic Economics New York) in English and Spanish will be out in October.

Comments

[realitytrumpsbull]

I think the truth lies closer to...'why work,
when you can drum up a bunch of crap, and get
people agitated?' This can also be expressed
as, 'some people never quite grow up'...

[BlairCase]

The three white students who hung the nooses at Jena High School claim they were unaware that nooses had racial connotations. Is this plausible? Donald Washington, the U.S. attorney for the Western District of Louisiana, chose not to pursue hate crime charges against the three teens accused of hanging the nooses because federal investigators could not established that the nooses were meant to intimidate black classmates.

The three students hung two nooses, not three, as is usually reported. The difference is important because three nooses are said to be a KKK symbol. Jenna bloggers claim that hanging stuff beneath the tree was a tradition priot to football games and that the three students hung the nooses, which were painted in the Jena High School colors, to intimidate their rivals in an upcoming game. This sounds like a blogger fantasy, but no one, it seems, has bothered to interview the three students to find out their motivation for hanging the nooses. Instead, we have to rely on the Justice Department statement.

Actually, most Americans were probably unaware hangman nooses could be construed as racist symbols until the Jena Six case made headlines. This explains the rash of deplorable copycat noose-hanging incidents across the nation. Burning crosses are suddenly out of vogue. It also explains the rush to remove hangman nooses from Halloween displays by people who intended their displays to be merely grotesque instead of racist.

The recent publication of scholarly articles relating Billie Holiday's song, "Strange Fruit," to lynchings during the Reconstruction Ear have raise public awareness, but most American probably relate lynching to Old West cattle rustlers and outlaws. Even in the Deep South, one-third of those lynched during the "lynch-law era" were white.

[Nommo]

"Actually, most Americans were probably unaware hangman nooses could be construed as racist symbols until the Jena Six case made headlines."
-BlairCase

Really? Who would these Americans be? What, they've never seen a western movie of the history channel. Who in their right goddamn mind would see a noose as anything but a threat? You should see the MSM when someone paints a swastika on a synagogue in the neck of the woods (pun intended) in which I reside.

The noose ought to scare the fuck out of you wherever in the world you are since its use ain't exclusive. I suggest to you that in this context, a Black person's response is likely come from deep within the pit--straight gut. Just enough stress to fuck up at least a part of the day.
White people please refrain from telling us how we should feel about anything. Deal with your own dramas. We have done nothing to divide the nation, we have been at pains to show you the strength of unity, which you all are at pains to remind yourselves of. How many movies is Ken Burns going to milk out of WW11? Even then the army was segregated. Imagine the complete stupidity that took. Deal with your own fears.
Realize, that above all, you constitute a significant aspect of our fears.

[BRUMALIA]

The hanging of nooses in contemporary America involves both views articulated by Mr. Earl Ofari. In some instances it is unadulterated hatred and bigotry, and in other instances or circumstances, it may be a hoax or pranks by ignorant,uninformed and racially insensitive individuals.Notwithstanding,for the black population the hanging of nooses evokes and conjures the oppressive,barbaric,unjust and hideous historical past of the American South.Consequently,the perception is real and tangible,whether done in the context of hate and bigotry, or a sophomoric prank or hoax by a group of students or individuals who are totally ignorant, oblivious, and indifferent to America's racial history.Hopefully,this practice and psychology will recede in the short term and racial differences,misunderstandings, etc., can or will be bridged via dialogue with respect to the individuals or groups involved in such differences.

[ms.understood]

I just think that the whole thing is ridiculous. Can white racists not be any more creative than to copy-cat high school students in Jena? And why don't the cowards make themselves known to the public instead of hiding behind absence? People need to get over it because Blacks and Latino's aren't going anywhere!

[Nommo]

Makes a lot more sense to pay attention to the big picture. These kinds of crimes, or hoaxes, whatever they may be, are distractions. Prankster games that keep people, particularly those that would be victimized, from dealing with the larger matters.
We needn't rediscover racism at every turn. It is what it is and has been, each person of his or her own accord knows what it means to them. What it may mean to the collective us and anyone's place in that spectrum is the greater issue.
We can paralyze ourselves or energize ourselves.
There appears to be time left for a decision.

[1will]

40 or 50 years the noose was a real threat. That's not the case today. When was the last time some white mob or even a couple of white racists hung a black person? It just doesn't happen. A black person is overwhelmingly more likely to be a victim of black on black crime in their own community then be the victim of some idiots in hoods and sheets. While the noose is a symbol of hatred and a bygone era it has no power today. Those displaying it do display thier ignorance.
The noose as a symbol is annoying, crude and ignorant but it no longer inspires fear.

[Nommo]

Do your research before asking certain questions.
It has happened more recently than you imagine. You can begin at the Southern Poverty Law Center.
You don't remember all those very recent church burning all over the South?
The last sentence? Not yours to call.

[1will]

I checked the Southern Poverty Law Center. Pretty weak. One black kid might have been beat up by two Klansmen in 2006. Oh the terror. That is what's known as an aberation. One lonely little incident every few years does not make a pattern. Why not go back a decade and bring up Byrd down in Texas?
I'll see your little Southern Poverty Law Center site and raise you with the newspapers for every major city in America. Check the black on black crime. Now check the black on white crime. I'll say it again, a few idiots in hoods are not a threat anymore and the noose inspires anger but not fear. Black people have more to worry about being robbed by other black people at an ATM then some idiot riding around with a noose on his truck.
As for the church burnings, the numbers are down. People burn churches for more reasons then simply because black people attend them. Churches are often active in opposing hate crime laws and abortion. Black churches have been especially active in opposing hate crime laws favouring homosexuals. I don't know who's burning the churches but regardless the numbers are still small. Having just searched for church buring statistics and info I didn't even find anything past 1998. The worst was in 1996 and 1997 when 40 churches were burned in about a year and a half. That's less than one church per state per year. Epidemic? Not.
Displaying a noose makes you an idiot. It doesn't scare anyone but it does piss people off. That's no doubt the intent. Burning churches is horrible but it's not being done often or in any organized manner. There's sick people everywhere and some of those people burn, kill, rape and maim. That doesn't mean that America in 2007 is the same as that in 1960.
Why don't you do some research and stop buying into the great victim pity party?

[Fairfloss]

Oh please, use your head. A sudden and constant, occurrence of racial crimes, large and small, being heavily covered by the press, doesn't it ring any bells, in the very long political season?

The very first black man is running for the Democratic nomination to run for the PRESIDENT of the United States of America.

Will this help him, hurt him? Think people, think. Who are all the major publications supporting?

Now figure it out for yourselves.

[Changeizgood]

I'm finding it hard to keep silent on the ignorance ya'll.

We all know the survivalist in Colorado and other wooded area property retreats or camps, train their children in violence and sometimes racist literature and black taackle dummies are used in the training.
Hate training has been in practice since before the civil war. Klan and their children stand before crosses in the pictures of old and some of the children are smiling.

Hate is taught just like love.
Hate is taught in the private schools and military academy's that train officers of the armed service and private security firms.

Boogieman tactics throughout history. The only Nothing has changed, it's hidden from your own liberal race. Under the guise of Religion.
Jesus didn't hate, so you are HYPOCRITS, using God to deceive the masses.
Now our children must be made aware of why we, African American and Native Americans wear the frown of disgust, at the injustice.

We could do a silence and use writing. No speech.
Keep our music, promote it overseas. Just dance to rock music. Our atheletes, remove them from drug induced US sports.
Start the African American Sports League and compete Globally in other countries.

How do you open businesses that serve black constituents in our communities, when the only loans being given are to foreign immigrants with corporate of overseas family backers?

Our money's going to Korea, Mexico, China,.

We can't get a loan even on our combined business incomes with other members of family or skilled businessmen.

Say what you want but like Rudy Guilianni said, You can't fool all of the people all of the time.

You fools need to wake up.

The world hates how you treat the minorities of the country.
If you think the illegals will clam up, just try us.

We are tired of being SICK AND TIRED.
Hate is hate and Reparations is just around the corner, as long as it continues.
The life time emotional damage of noose terrorism in America, will be our proof.

Either stop it, or pay in damages!

[Nommo]

Finally. One of the major issues no one seems to address--the economic terrorism that is part and parcel of this racist culture. The redlining (when they started redlining, one "minority" living on a block was sufficient reason) of our communities. I have lived long enough to see wave after wave of immigrants get breaks that were not available to residents of the community, whatever their credit status.
Seems that only predatory lenders are welcome. More terror.
What happens when it is realized that it goes in circles?

[oldpotsmuggler]

I vote for "a grim sign of a new racist hate upsurge in America". I watched the riots that followed the release of the Rodney King beating cops in a prison T.V. room where I was the only white. It was fascinating to watch as guys pointed out particular landmarks, and even brief shots of homeys. The hands down favorite of the crowd was that scene where the white guy gets pulled out and beaten. There was a ton of racism in that room. There was a ton of racism outside that room, and I was one of the few in the population that did not hang with my own race, and plot against everybody else.

When I study society around me there are small signs of improvement visible. But small changes ain't getting the job done when the problem is the size of the one we started with.