The images from Jena, La. today is striking... masses of people unloading from buses to protest the charges against the "Jena Six." It's way too early to guess at how many people are there, but for a tiny town of about 3,000 people, it's not hard to overload the area. The racially charged story involves fights between black students and white students, criminal charges, and nooses hung from a tree. Today, we'll hear from one of the many bloggers who helped push this story into the mainstream. Shawn Williams is in Jena for the really. We'll also talk about the symbolism of the noose, and how it can mean such different things to different people.
Blog Of The Nation
A noose alone does not bring with it connotations of death. A noose hanging from a tree, however, signifies days (some less than a century ago) when trial by jury did not exist for blacks in this country, particularly in the South. Perhaps because of the youthful ignorance of these high-school age children prevented them from discerning the depth of symbolism the noose carries. For most, however, the noose is a disturbing and horrific of symbol hatred, injustice, and racism in our country's past.
Regarding the Jena 6 story and the interview with historian Joseph Jordan, I am sad that the administrators of the school did not use the "teachable moment" when the nooses first appeared to call a schoolwide assembly with someone such as Mr. Jordan as a speaker and to show what the noose really means, what it really did to human beings. It is doubly sad that they felt the way to deal with the problem was to cut down the "tree of knowledge." But that sort of thinking is probably why the people of Jena, Louisiana find themselves where they are today.
As an African-American the symbolism of a noose represents the complete opposite of the American freedoms that are supposedly "available" for me to partake in today. Restriction and vulnerability are just a few words that come to mind. That's not mentioning the various graphics and photographs from our U.S. History that reveal the ugly truth of lynchings and random abuse of Blacks more than 50 years ago.
As an African American who moved from a small Southern community because of the use of a noose, I certainly don't think it can be considered a prank.
Like the Jewish Holocaust, the African American Holocaust carries the same symbolism (the Nazi swastika and tattooed serial numbers ) that are offensive and carry a direct meaning that only a group who has suffered can understand.
We are not asking anyone to be "politically correct" but, we are asking you to stand in our shoes and count the bodies that have swayed from trees by the tools they were using and classified as a prank.
Make no mistake about it; we (African Americans) do not consider the use of a noose to be a childish prank - but one that's trying to send a message. The terror of lynching in America still happens, though not a frequently. But, at the end of the 20th century, a young African American male was lynched in Darlington, SC but, his death was attributed to be a suicide by the local law enforcement officials. The truth of the matter is, this young man was in Klan country and was married to a white female.
The African American community is not blind to the deed and symbolism of the noose when directed towards us.
I think one of the more telling comments was when one of the town's white ministers attempted to appeal to Jena 6 parents (his view of the harmlessness of the nooses) by saying HE played with NOOSES "all the time" as a CHILD. Yet, when yoiu go to the Jena town website that was hastily posted, there is a statement that says "There has never been a lynching in Jena, ever." well, if the elderly minister played with them all the time as a child (growing up in Jena, LA), is Jena a manufacturing site for nooses. Children (unless they were raised in KKK sympathetic households) play with TOYS, and a NOOSE is not a toy. Good grief, Rev. Charlie "Jena" Brown!
I am a white person from the North that lives in VERY conservative area, and I am outraged that this incident even got to the level that it did.
The fact is, that if the school administrators had done their job, and punished the people that hung the nooses to begin with, the tensions may have been lessoned, making the violence unnecessary. There obviously was no serious effort to deal with the racial discrimination and the problems brewed and boiled over while officials did nothing.
This was CLEARLY a Civil Rights violation, with the hanging of the nooses, NOT a harmless prank.
It is unconsciounable that the South is still so racially divided, and tolerating of KKK tactics. America should not be tolerating any type of hanging nooses behavior.
The KKK should have been dead and buried 50 years ago, not alive and well in the 2007.
The hanging of nooses was an exercise of 1st Amendment "free speech" without any violence. The criminal attack on a white student unconnected with the "free speech" was clearly illegal with no justification. The Jena Six have violated the law and should be punished fully for what they have done. The rallying of support by Sharpton, Jackson, etc. completely discredits them and their pursuit of civil rights.
WAKE UP!! I am a white woman who married and had 2 awesome sons by a black man...While I am not black---I have endured the hateful stares, the discrimination, and hidden predjudice of hate. I am an RN...I seek to make people's lives better and more comfortable, whether one is living with cancer or using preventative medicine...What I'm getting at it this "hate" of skin color, is ridiculous...I know alot of people that said "Predjudice" no longer exists, those are the same people who voted against affirmative action...the truth is that hate never dies...it just changes it's form....And most especially, parents who harbor hate, will beget children who harbor hate. Case in point, Jenna ...............On the flip side...I have too encountered hate...both from my family, intially, and from the black community locally, and my ex-husband. He is a fine man. My family has come to understand that. His family never had a problem with it. His new wife and I get along great. Time moves on, and so do our lives. We learn from the past. I think my ex and I have realized that the High School love or your dreams doesn't always make for a happy ever after. But honestly, that had very little to do with out different races. I'm quite sure he would tell you the same. Just want to say that the law should be constant throught out the United States. I support all of the people there support the Jenna kids.
Conveniently forgotten is the reality that many thousands of Jews were executed by noose, by Germany, by Hitler. It's like only the blacks suffered.
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