Ignore the Noose? WTF?

So, the other day I'm driving along, my son in his kid seat in the back, and I'm looking out the window, thinking about how San Francisco has changed from a class conscious hotbed of Radicals to a bevy of buttheads who moved here to be cool -- not realizing all they did was bring their lack of coolness with them, infecting us with it, thereby lowering the cool average, and making The City just a little more like the intolerant, sexist, segregated pest hole they fled -- when I decided I needed to calm down. Son giggling in the backseat, beautiful day, no known infections -- I really needed to "chill," as my piercing bedecked brethren say.

So I switched on NPR. It's not Air America, but sometimes even I get tired of unvarnished progressive talk, and just want to hear a story about how some old bluesman is finally getting remembered with a posthumous medal of honor and a commemorative recording of his songs, made by those who ripped him off his whole life before he was dumped into a paupers grave.

You know, a feel good story.

But no. I hear a commentary about the case of the Jena Six, and all the subsequent noose sightings around the country. In a nutshell the speaker, who was a Black man, was saying that the real problem wasn't the nooses, but the reaction to them. All this complaining, media attention, marches ... what should have happened was people just ignoring the incidents. By being concerned and angry, by reacting at all we are just giving the perpetrators of these rather minor acts of vandalism too much power, and the attention they want. Better to just get on with life.

And there went my feel goodiness.

What the fuck?

( read like William Shatner) A...Black...man...says...ignore ...the...noose...hanging...on...your...d oor...

What the fuck!?!

Somewhere W.E.B. DuBois is feverishly gluing hair to his head so he can tear it out in frustration, and Martin Luther King Jr. is limbering up so he can spin in his grave without throwing out a hip.

Ignore it and they will go away. Because, as we all know, anyone who would hang a noose would never wonder, "Since no one kicked up a fuss about that, what else can we get away with?" No pushing the envelope, taking a chance, dragging you behind a pickup truck for these fellows. No, the very fact that they hung a noose on your door proves they have the kind of restraint rarely see in those so inbred.

Oh, and he said if he saw one on his own door he would take it down, and forget it, because he had better things to worry about -- like redoing his kitchen.

This isn't just lame ass, run-of-the-mill rhythm method stupid. This is crazy stupid. This is swim with sharks with a lamb chop necklace, screw your Boss's wife on his desk, I think I can make it even though the light turned red stupid.

Okay, first off: having an appropriate reaction to threatening stimuli is not only survival adaptive, its part of not being batshit nuts. Let's say somebody pulls a knife on you. The correct response is to be wary, and take a defensive attitude. Maybe nothing will happen, but you want to be ready just in case D'Artagnan Jones makes a move.

What if he doesn't pull a knife, but simply says "I'm going to stab you." It is still in the best interest of you and your insurance company that you take that seriously, especially if it seems the guy has taken a real dislike to something about you that you aren't going to change -- like your skin color.

Ahhh... Now, what if you wake up and there is a only note on your front door - "I'm going to stab you." What kind of fool ignores that? Especially if you live in a country with a history of stabbing people like you? And remember, this is a threat to your whole family. I look at my son in the backseat and try to think of what Father wouldn't want to hunt the person down and make them eat their own feet.

And as for giving power over to those that threaten you...

Ignoring actual events, denying reality is what gives the perpetrator power -- the power to make you deny reality. And denying reality is a definition of crazy. Now that's power. They got you walking around trying to convince yourself this isn't happening. Got you saying your Mediterranean tiling is more worthy of discussion than a righteous reaction to Terrorism and the Politics of Fear.

Ignoring the threat is a way to keep your power? What's next: Ignorance is Strength?

When I was a wee bairn, bouncing on my ma's knee, there were two things she said that I will never forget. "Michael, my boy," she said:

"A: Capitalism is theft. Investor dividends always equal the added value created by the worker's labor, a worker who is by necessity underpaid and oppressed." ( Of course, she didn't say it like that - her version involved two bunnies, a box of cookies, and Warren G. Harding.)

"B. Being Black should put you at the vanguard of the fight against injustice and oppression, which must be stomped out at the soonest opportunity. And if they pop up again, stomp again. Pop, stomp, pop, stomp. That is the dance of an alert citizenry -- and if Blacks are supposed to be such good dancers that's the dance we should to do doing."

She had a way with words.

These things cannot be ignored. And when I hear some guy argue how we should ignore racist, or sexist, or homophobic threats, I think about all the people who stood up to injustice so this guy can say we should lay down, raised their voices so he could ask us to keep quiet, gave their lives so this guy can worry more about remodeling his kitchen when not only did someone hang a noose on his door, they hung it on the door of his wife and children.

What the fuck?

And if you honestly believe that having a survival response, and the accompanying anger is somehow giving power over to you tormentor, here are some other tried and true reactions to so-called "threats:"

Ignore the swastika carved into your steps. Just think of it as Nazi folk art. Besides, you didn't need all those pesky aunts and uncles, anyway.

Burning cross on the lawn? Toasty on a cool night. Get marshmallows, and share them with the Klansmen. They love the color. And doesn't the word Klan just mean family?

And nooses? How could they imply violence? Don't think of them as direct threats, think of them as Negro coat hooks -- just a place to hang spare Blacks when we're not in use.

Comments

[thsimple]

(And look! I have a typo! I am one of the many!)

[thsimple]

Well, well, well, ~ looky at the responses this time!

Pity a few of the respondees can't analyze text efficiently. Or spell well. But then, they might be just too irked about a little detail to worry about it. Like parsing who is what color -

I always find it interesting to puzzle out people's filters and predjudice by what they focus on, sometimes to the detriment of reality. Your piece seems to be acting as a good filter.

(and I take it you are NOT doing a kitchen remodel...)

Please keep writing, and making we, the occasionally unthinking public keep reacting. At least, if we are outraged, it means we're engaged.

[raker]

The NPR program that called people pussies for reacting to hangman's nooses is called Talk of the Nation. It's a far cry from Air America. More like Hannity or O'Reilly for the Whole Foods and bowtie set, but worse because it's done slyly under NPR's respected name. The show is unfailingly conservative, i.e., propagandizing for every abomination that comes down the Bush shute.

The way I figure it - Terry Gross notwithstanding - NPR owes ME a check to make up for the time wasted on Talk of the Nation.

[Filinbills615]

Oh, don't worry! Didn't you read the story on the Christian Science Monitor "Myths about the Jena 6," linked by this site? They weren't nooses at all, they were lassos, signaling fellow white kids to fire up for the upcoming rodeo! See? No problem.

[JimR]

What you don't stop to consider is that most of these nooses are being put up for the sole purpose of inciting a reaction.

[MichaelGeneSullivan]

First, you seem to know alot about the motives of people who hang nooses. Otherwise, you're just guessing.

And actually I did consider that. But do I want to bet my son's life on that assumption?

That would be stupid.

And again, the whole "the best reaction to a bully is to ignore them" thing only works after you are covered with welts and the bully gets tired and bored, or in the case of the Democrats, after you let the Reactionaries beat the shit out of you while you acquiesce to their every UnConstitutional demand, and everyone realizes your Party is too little of a threat to be bothered with.

The key in either situation is to give them a reaction they don't want... something they won't like, and that will stay with them a long time.

[1will]

The thing about the noose is in today's America it's just an idiotic gesture. Despite the lynchings of the post century I doubt anyone today really fears that a white trash mob will form and hang them from a tree. It just doesn't happen. For those that disagree I'll need a couple of links before you even remotely prove your point.
The noose is a symbol that has lost it's power to instill fear. All it does is piss people off. If I were black I would worry more about being raped, robbed or killed by my own people than some redneck in a sheet carrying a noose.

[MichaelGeneSullivan]

"If I were black..." being the key phrase. See, what does happen is we just get beaten or shot - sometimes by non-Black people who just don't like us because of the color of our skin. And the noose is just a better visual threat than hanging a picture of a fist on someone's door. The noose has a historical resonance, which I understand may be difficult to understand in an ahistorical society, but is nevertheless true.

The hanging of a noose isn't a threat of lynching, it's intimidation, and a threat of violence in a country with a long tradition of beating the shit out of us. (Hey, did ya'll hear that the cops caught on tape beating that elderly Black teacher in New Orleans after Katrina, the case of a gang of the Big Easy's finest kicking him in the head while he was laying on the ground, they got off! On tape...beating old Black man... not guilty. Perhaps if they'd used a noose...)

Anyway, to ignore that history, and presume the intention of the person who hung the noose is somehow merely to create mischievous merriment with a Holloween prank is self-delusional. And you might know that... if you were Black.

[The Hedonistic Pleasureseeker]

OK, I need to throw something out here.

The freaks controlling our federal government are just ITCHING for the opportunity to declare martial law and flush our civil rights down the toilet. My gut is telling me that certain government "operatives" saw the marches and protests in Jena and figured staging nooses all over the country would start massive citizen unrest. These are agent provacateurs, in other words.

Why would an agitated response to this or any other provocation be dangerous? Easy: A recent Executive Order outlined the plan to implement martial law and the suspension of the Constitution in the event of civil unrest.

Meaning, should you hit the street and get disruptive they know exactly what they will do with you and trust me you won't like it. Large "detention centers" are fully staffed and ready to accept "detainees" . . . indefinitely and without access to attornies.

Because of this new twist in this twisted Administration, anti-war and anti-globalism demonstrators are being extra careful not to react to the "agent provacateurs" doing their best to start riots during their protests. On the other hand, non-violent and dignified approaches to solving the noose problem: A letter to the editor of your local paper, a neighborhood/town meeting and watch group, or just TALKING openly with everyone you meet about racism to establish group consensus, etc.) will foil their plan (should such a plan exist).

Just my two cents.

[mae692]

If your plan exists they won't need a reason. They'll just do it an hold a press conference afterward. The media will follow the "talking points" and the country will say "Wow, that was a close one." Since the protesters will be locked up, what are they going to say?

[SamThornton]

You make a great point, Michael. In the early days of the country, Puritans and Quakers had methods of dealing with social deviants who offended the community: public shaming. It took a variety of forms, and perhaps it's something whose time has come back. I wouldn't have any difficulty in sentencing the miscreants to wearing a big, red letter "D" for dumbass around their necks for a year or so.

[mikeodd]

The magnetism of the swastika explains its enduring popularity. Many of them are the creations of surburban whitetrash mooks. They don't know Goebbels from Panzer but flirt with it anyway because, while you can ignore a moron, nobody ignores a swastika. They eventually tire of it and reserve their 'reichtiousness' when they get dissed by Jewish girls on spring break.

[FearlessFreep]

And if a Jew finds a swastika painted on his door...

[grendl]

Another thing.

Shaming hate mongers into keeping silent, does nothing to cure their hatred. They become stealthier practitioners of prejudice, but their hatred is still there.

And some would say good, silent hatred is better than expressed hatred, but I believe that to be a fallacy.

Societal prejudice, misogyny, cannot just be swept under a carpet, locked in a closet, or muzzled like a pit bull. Because that doesn't cure it. It needs to be exposed.

The cross burners need to be exposed. The neo con fascists need to be exposed, not muzzled. And by saying a noose on someones door should be ignored, that doesn't mean its swept under the carpet. It means its let out into the open, exposed in all its hateful glory AND STILL a black man, who should be offended by it the most dismisses it.

Thats strength. The power to rise above unadulterated hatred when face to face with it.

[FogBelter]

Yeah, we all know how well rising above the hatred of the Nazis worked for the Jews, and rising above the hatred of the Turks worked for the Armenians, and rising above the hatred of the KKK worked for blacks ...

I think your premise has a wee bit of a Pollyanna quality to it. We have to learn from our history and not imagine we have evolved since then.

I'd like to live in a world where rising above Hatred would actually accomplish something then I remember that the man who coined the phrase "All we are Saying is Give Peace a Chance" was murdered.

I appreciate your optimism but fear it would be dangerous to live by it.

[Rescisco]

Sometimes I feel like hate and ignorance are the most powerful components in the human condition. But then I think of fear and see how it makes the other two seem reasonable and even acceptable. This is the "trinity" that rules the human soul. From one generation to the next, it overpowers the better angels of our nature and arrests human progress. And in this we take great pride, for we are after all is said and done rightous and holy in our absolute insanity.

[WBum]

Fear is the strongest emotion. We live our lives based on it.

Now somebody who is wise and a better, stronger person then me will probably claim that they don't.

[RealBlackGirl]

I needed this laugh.

[SoulSistah]

Very well written. A threat is what it is. Period.

[coxproject]

First off, not sure who Michael Gene Sullivan is or what he did to get the keys to HuffPo, but there's clearly been a lowering of standards. This essay is poorly reasoned, amateur and cartoon-like in tone, and ridiculous. Off the comments of one black man? Really? Better to have simply driven your kid to school, enjoyed your health, and gone back to your assinine Air America.

I'll preface the following comment with a brief recitation of my lefty bona fides: I stumped in three states for Gore in 2000 and in two states for Kerry in 2004, I have never voted for a Republican in my life, I read the NY Times daily and subscribe to my local NPR station. That said, this piece is exactly the kind of high-flung hot air Air America pumps out every day. Stop trying to compete with Rush Limbaugh and Sean Hannity. You sound like a buffoon.

Finally, santimonious twits Bay Area like Michael Gene Sullivan are why I left my beloved SF. And I took my cool with me.

[bluestatelib]

What a strange comment. Clearly you didn't like MGS's blog, yet you give no specific reasons why; just make vague statements of disapproval and random, unnecessary attacks.

You also unnecessarily provide your "lefty bona fides," which are interesting only in so much as they show that you seem to think that the "NY Times" and "NPR" epitomize the "left," which is certainly questionable.

I sense such pent-up frustration from you which seemingly has little to do with MGS's blog. Make and argument or find something better to do.

[FogBelter]

The City doesn't miss you ... just so you know.

And for the record, whenever someone whips out their "Liberal Bona Fides" I wonder what they REALLY stand for.