Hanging Up Racism

Last year, as a group of black students were put on a very public trial in a case known as the Jena Six, we saw a reemergence of the often sugar-coated race debate. For those of us who do not come from towns where there is a high amount of racial tension, we have no contextual lens through which we can understand the situation of those who are living in the midst of racism every day.

The (sort of) facts: at Jena’s high school there was a tree that was understood to be a tree under which only white students could sit. A black student asked the principle if black kids were allowed to sit under the tree. The student was told that he could sit wherever he wanted. The next day, there were nooses hung from the tree. It was believed to be a threat against black students at the school. In the ensuing days a white student beat up a black student and received a slap on the wrist for his crime. As racial tensions increased a group of black students ganged up on a white student and beat him up (the white student’s parents claim that they beat him up within an inch of his life—a disreputable claim considering he appeared back at school just days later). The black students who were involved in the crime (many of whom had previous records) were then charged with attempted murder. Many members of the community alleged that the charge did not fit the crime (based on the white student’s previous slap on the wrist). The media caught wind and descended on the town. And the Jena Six (who were indisputably guilty of the crime they were accused of) were tried in the court of public opinion.

Since then, the case has been a point of contention for those who seek to prove that racism is still a very real problem in America. And with it, the noose, an iconic symbol of the American West and frontier justice, has been lost to the ambiguity of the race card.

When analyst Kelly Tilghman alleged that the only way Tiger could be beat is if his competitors lynched him in a back alley, the golf community stood stunned. No one seemed to hear the compliment in Tilghman’s words, rather they alleged that her comment (albeit foolish for a high profile analyst) was insensitive and racist. As Rev. Al Sharpton called for her head, The Golf Channel exercised prudence and merely suspended her for two weeks. The story became a national media spectacle, and Golf Week—like many non-golf magazines had already done—decided to make the incident its cover story. But what really got to people was the picture that the magazine ran on the front of its magazine. An empty noose hung prominently on the front of Golf Week. And as the barrage of negative feedback came in, the publishers of the magazine thought it best to fire their Editor-in-Chief for making what has been called a “controversial decision” to run the image.

Now, there is no denying that in the history of America there have been many lynchings of blacks. But black people are not the only individuals who have been killed by mobs, or hanged by ropes. In fact, hundreds, if not thousands of people have been executed similarly. For example, Saddam Hussein (remember, the leader who was responsible for the deaths of millions of people whom we—America—successfully ousted in Iraq) was recently hanged. While that was not a “lynching,” it most certainly was a hanging, and hangings involve nooses. We cannot assume that the existence of a noose is evidence of a lynching. Moreover, we cannot assume that the existence of a lynching is evidence of racism.

In recent years, we have seen a number of lynchings carried out on homosexuals—Matthew Shepard most famously. But we do not hear the homosexual community in an uproar over pictures of ropes. And yet, in recent lynching realizations, the practice which for a brief period of history was largely a white against black crime, has been re-popularized as a bigot against gay crime.

And so, I am left wondering, what is so offensive about a noose? What has made it go the way of the “N” word? I think we need to be more careful to thoughtfully consider the things we believe and their implications. Oftentimes we become offended by words without consideration for the truth of them. A few years ago, when President Summer’s made his comments about women, for example. Rather than assessing the actual words he said, people got offended that he said anything that might be construed as offensive.

There is no denying that there have been some painful periods in America’s history. Slavery, for one, was a great evil perpetuated against Africans for nearly 300 years in the Americas, and for nearly a century in the United States of America. And, even today, the ramifications of such an evil are manifest in the millions of poor Africans (who now consider themselves—sometimes proudly—Americans) who have been ghettoized to poor, urban environments where the cycle of poverty has become a Samsara-like phenomenon, perpetuated by a culture of self-declared, victimized people who happen to also have black skin. The reality of poverty is that it is terribly sad that some people do not have enough money to put food on their table, blankets on their kids, or a roof over their family’s head.

But there is a huge percentage of poor people in this country who own a television; what’s more, they pay monthly for cable. In front of their televisions, many of them own a couch so that they can sit and watch their TV. Many of them live in apartments and have fridges stocked with food. They own tables and chairs where they can eat their food. And so, while true poverty is tragic, we must remember that it is not a tragedy that every child does not own an X-Box. As Americans we do not have the inalienable right to be comfortable. But what is remarkable is that we have built a nation in which even those in dire straights can have the luxuries not afforded to the poor in other countries. This country is one in which the poor can become rich (and sometimes, the rich can lose everything). And so, while we have had some dark days as a nation, those days are behind us, and it does not really help to live in the past.

When the race card is as ready to be drawn as a gun-slinger’s Magnum, we cannot help but live in the past. But there is no reconciliation when old crimes become new fodder. Whether or not the whole Jena Six mess was racially motivated is mere conjecture. But we cannot forget that our responsibility is to ourselves. And we cannot blame others for our positions. We are allowed to be comfortable, but it is not our right to be comfortable. We are allowed to be rich, but it is not our right to be rich. We are allowed to live in an inoffensive world, but it is not our right to live free of offense. Whether or not Golf Week, or any other magazine, puts a noose on its cover, the only people whom it really affects are those who allow themselves to be affected.