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T worker agrees wearing a noose around his neck on Halloween might've been a tad racially insensitive
By adamg on Wed, 11/14/2007 - 11:11am
Of course, Jaime Garmendia did so as part of his punishment for his Halloween costume.
Props to Channel 4 for illustrating its version of the story with a photo of a noose, because that certainly adds to our understanding of the issues involved.
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Comments
Noose?
Forgive me if I'm the only one who doesn't know this, but is a noose by itself racially offensive? A noose in a tree clearly - lynching. But a noose alone? Especially on Haloween? Was there more to this person's costume that would suggest a racial connection.
stupid but not necessarily racist
I feel like the media has conditioned us to perceive the noose as a racially offensive icon. White men and women have also historically and infamously been hung with nooses... those accused of witchcraft during the Salem witch trials, for instance.
nooses
My thoughts as well. Nooses bring to my mind official executions (such as the Salem 'witches'). Not an image in terribly good taste, but Halloween isn't about good taste.
Context?
There's no context here. Was he carrying the noose and wearing a white sheet? Was he wearing the noose and in blackface? Was he dressed as an undead cowboy with a tattered noose around his own neck? Did he dress up like a noose?
Seriously, nooses are racist? I'm a frayed knot.
For Heavens Sake
Good pun, Anon. Meanwhile, I have to agree that a noose is not in itself racist. In my mind's eye I see a cartoon of some poor soul who has had it with life and stands on a chair to put a noose around his neck. And then some chap pokes his head in and clucks, "Don't you know that's racist?" There's enough hysteria about race in Boston as it is. And there's enough REAL racism in the world to worry about without making racism up.
The Herald does a much better job explaining the context
I should have read their story first.
The guy is Mexican, and in his culture, death is a big thing and all, and he claims nobody protested when he wore the same exact costume last year.
So what changed? The whole Jena Six case, which us pasty-faced people have mostly ignored, but which has become a fairly big issue in the black community - and one of the issues is the way white kids putting up nooses in a tree outside the high school.
It doesn't seem this
It doesn't seem this individual had any racist intent in mind when he did this. But looking at the Herald comments will make you realize how many racist nutjobs there are out there in our city. Truly frightening.
Jenna 6 notwithstanding, it
Jenna 6 notwithstanding, it is totally irrelevant to this incident. A noose itself is not inherently racist, just as cotton balls should not summon images of forced labor. Criminals were executed by hanging for hundreds of years.
Racism is in the eye of the beholder
If you are white you might say "what's the big deal". If you are someone for whom a noose is an everpresent reminder of violent mobs murdering people for no other reason than social coercion, it is racist.
One of the first things to learn about racism is that the "racist content" of any action or symbol is determined by the perception of the threatened, not the intention of the sayer/doer.
I'm sure that older white bus driver who treated a black man like a piece of shit on the 5:55 95 bus last night because his pass didn't beep the beeper the first time thought he was "just following the rules". Unfortunately, he was most abusive in language and attitude for something which happens frequently, and it was clearly felt as such by the person he attacked. I've seen him be vastly more polite to a white person in a similar situation and simply call them back to try again and not threaten to throw them off the bus for challenging his asshole act.
I doubt he would see the racism in his behavior. But that doesn't matter - what matters is that it was obvious to the person he screamed at.
No
It's not racist if you hate everyone equally.
Also, context is key especially since if we were to give the definition of racism/harassment over to the victim alone (as you suggest), then everything we ever do always will be allowed to be construed as harrassing/racist...and that's just as unacceptable as what these types of overbearing "policies" are intending to solve.
Nooses aren't any more racist than if he'd shown up dressed as a burrito or Godzilla.
Oh, come on: Nooses have more meaning in this country
Yes, hanging has been an acceptable way to put convicts to death for hundreds of years. But in this country, for more than 150 years, nooses have also symbolized a certain type of "justice" as practiced in large parts of the South. The fact that white kids hung nooses in the tree outside the high school shows that knowledge is still being passed down. The fact that black people might be sensitive to nooses in general and more specifically in the past year or so doesn't mean they should just laugh and learn to get over it. Imagine if the guy were a programmer and showed Jewish co-workers the cool tattoo he got of some numbers on his wrist.
At the same time, I accept his explanation that he just didn't know. Fine. Where he lost me was when, according to the Herald, co-workers asked him to take the thing off, and he didn't. If you're doing something that bothers co-workers, and it's not something you have to do to perform your job or stay alive or whatever, that shows a certain amount of disrespect for them.
You are connecting two
You are connecting two incidents that are totally unrelated. I agree wholeheartedly that hanging nooses on trees can be interpreted as racist. But clearly this guy did not have that intent. His rudeness towards his fellow employees is totally irrelevant.
And what's the meaning in Mexico?
I gather from the article that Mr. Garmendia graduated from BU. The internets tell me he went to high school in Delaware, having moved there from Rochester MI, and previously Buenos Aires. His father is Mexican and his mother is American.
From his pages, he sounds like a wicked smart guy (Presidential Scholar 1999, bilingual, math geek), so maybe he should have known better. But surely he was thinking of something else - like celebrating his own ethnic heritage.
Seeing what doesn't exist
I used to work in a Metco high school. I had the greatest respect for the kids who got up hours earlier than their peers to drive across the city and into the leafy suburb where I worked. One day in the classroom I picked up a length of rope left over from a previous project. Absentmindedly I began whipping the rope into my hand, grabbing it, releasing it, and whipping it again. I walked all over the room doing this as the kids worked on their projects. As I passed by the one black student in the class he stunned me by saying, "Isn't that racist?"
I asked him what on Earth he was talking about and he said it had connotations of a master whipping his slave. I was appalled that anyone would accuse me of racism, particularly one of my favorite students. I didn't do anything differently in front of him that I hadn't done in front of 20 white kids. He was seeing things that absolutely were not there.
I agree, Seraphic. There is way to much real racism out there to be imagining it where it does not exist.
No, YOU were insensitive
You were absentmindedly whipping a rope around. He perceived that as an implied threat.
You don't have a right to ignorance as a defense of insensitivity (or just having a little fuuuunnn). Your student has a right to feel comfortable enough in your classroom to learn. Just because you are too oblivious to intend to make that student uncomfortable, doesn't mean that the discomfort isn't there.
You are further compounding that threat by demeaning the student and accusing him of "seeing things that aren't there". He saw that rope come around. It was there. What wasn't there was any sensitivity to how these sorts of things look to people with far less privilege than yourself.
Racism
SwirlyGrrl, by your definition of racism, racism is totally subjective and can't be avoided. For example, if I feel that your post is racially insensative towards me, by your defnition you are being a racist even though neither you, nor likely anyone else who read it, would feel the same way I do. There has to be some objective criteria attributed to racism, particularly where, as in the original story, someone is punished for an act based on its alleged racial implications.
God Forbid
Gee, can't possibly expect people with a long history of cultural dominance to be aware of what they are saying or doing so that they don't threaten or demean those around them! That would be unfaiiirrrr!
But this supposes that white
But this supposes that white people should constantly be thinking that simply because they are part of a group with a long history of cultural dominance their actions, regardless of their intent, are likley to be perceived as racist by others and, therefore, should always second guess what they do. It sounds like you think that white individuals should consider themselves racist soley because they are white. It also sounds like you think that non-white people would be correct to consider white people racist solely because they are white. If that's the case, isn't that, in itself, racism - ascribing racism to white people just because they're white?
But I was only having fun
You're upset? Gee, can't you take a joke? What's your problem?
I know all about you people, you're just looking for a reason to cause trouble. Well, take a vallium, okay? It really is funny, okay! Lighten up!
Who said Former Teacher is white?
I don't think that was in the description.
I also think it would be worth pointing out that the individual who caused the entire flap by dressing himself up as something resembling (to me) the Baron Samedi is Hispanic.
I'm having a hard time seeing Hispanics as having a "long history of cultural dominance" in this country.
Let's wait for Former Teacher to chime in
But I'm really doubting that a black kid would accuse a black teacher swinging a rope of recreating slavery - any more than I'd expect the editor of Heeb magazine to be anything but a Jew.
As for Baron Samedi of the T, again, I'll give him the benefit of the doubt, although knowing that he grew up in the US does lessen my belief in hishis just-celebrating-my-culture innocence.
On the other hand,
The black student is the person in that classroom who made a racist statement by comparing Former Teacher to someone engaged in heinous immoral crimes based on his perception of her race.
What's the difference between saying someone you perceive as white looks like a slaveholder (although nobody in that person's lineage may ever have held slaves or even lived in America at the time when slaves were held) and saying that someone with an Arabic-sounding name looks like a terrorist?
Not Insensitive
First, for the record, I am white. Secondly, I don't think I was being insensitive at all. This was simply something I was doing as I walked around the room. If I had gone up to him, looked him viciously in the face and whipped the rope hard into my hand, then yes, I will agree that it would have created an inappropriate atmosphere. Thats not what was happening, though. I did it as I passed every kid in the room and spoke to many of them, all in the same tone of voice. I also wasn't whipping the rope hard - it was into my own hand after all and I'm not about to hurt myself. You might as well accuse me of being insensitive to lifeguards. After all, they swing their lanyards around into their opposite hand as well. Maybe I was mocking them. (No, I was not.)
What would happen if a black man was crossing at the crosswalk and I stopped a few inches into the paint? Could I then be accused of racism because he saw an act of aggression when all it was is me having slightly slower reaction times than maybe I should? We can't live our lives in the fear that our every action will be construed as being racist.
Also, for the record, I recently lived in a part of the world where I was a distinct racial minority. And, if you have seen some of the places I have lived you also wouldn't accuse me of coming from "privledge." In fact, I could relate in many cases far more to the Metco students than those who lived in the town I taught in.
You really must compound the
You really must compound the ignorance with denial here, eh?
You really think that it is neither ignorant, racist, or insensitive to completely discount the experience and perception of a student because there were far more qualified people (white students) who have not experienced the world he has and there happened to be more of them?
I suppose you think he'd need a cosigner to get a loan, because he can't be trusted to accurately report his own income?
I'm glad you don't teach anymore. I know many teachers of children in diverse and ethnic/racial majority environments and one thing is clear: you don't know how to learn.
Nasty anonymouse
There's really no reason to insult this nice lady here. Your suppositions of her supposed racism are far, far more ignorant and insulting than anything she's said here.
'discount the experience and
'discount the experience and perception of a student'
Are you saying that this young boy has experienced being whipped as a slave by his master???
And what is this about a loan? You're way off topic.
Many Books on the Subject
Most teachers who deal with diverse environments think about these things every day.
Those with non-diverse environments should prepare themselves for diversity as well.
Racism isn't unusual violence - racism is everywhere, everyday. Teachers will make mistakes, but they can't just declare themselves infallible and attack the child who is different and dares to point these things out. That's the old way - rife in Massachusetts but also present in other places (the "protruding nail must be hammered down" attitude).
Here's a way that teachers in my kids school typically deal with these things:
Teacher: (whips rope around)
Student: That's racist!
Teacher: Really? I'm sorry, I didn't know that. In fact, I really don't understand. Could you explain why it makes you uncomfortable? I'm sure the other students should learn this too!
Student: um, er.
Teacher: That's okay - you can come after class or after school if you are more comfortable explaining it to me personally. Now open your books to ...
What is different here? It is a LEARNING moment - for both teacher and students. Not an I'm the Dominant Dog here and You are Out of Line Little Mister moment. It isn't about dominance and order and heiarchy and feeling threatened. It isn't about "good little boy" becoming "bad little boy who challenged me".
By giving the kid a chance to explain, you just might learn something. If it really is bogus, and there is no explanation, then that comes out too.
In any case, this approach resepects the possibility that Former Teacher might not know everything and might have made a stupid mistake! It gives the kid a chance to explain to the teachers and others in the class so that they won't make the same mistake. And, if it was just a bogus way to disrupt class, the kid gets put on the spot to explain himself (and he can't complain that he was marginalized or not given a fair chance, either).
In order to get past the legendary Boston racist label, I think the community must first transcend the organized-crime mentality of "circle the wagons, deny, lie, attack the messenger ..." that was coupled to and fueled the racism that led to the conflagrations of the 1970s.
You're blowing things way
You're blowing things way out of proportion here. There is no need to villify the teacher - this would only further alienate the student by making him feel as if the teacher were indeed pretending to be a whipping slave master. That was not what actually happened!
It had already been suggested in a comment previous to yours that the teacher open a dialogue about the student's reaction with the student and his parents. The parents really must be involved in this case.
The point?
The point of said "dialogue" being "your kid has been a bad boy", or "what is wrong with YOU people", if I read that earlier comment right.
Besides, that sounds like punishment when you consider the travel time and distances involved.
Like I said, there are plenty of resources for Former Teacher if she/he ever wants to set foot in a classroom again. Here's a good brief on how to deal with teaching to a diverse classroom. Of course, that would demand that he/she actually learn something.
Everyone is entitled to
Everyone is entitled to their interpretation. Why be so negative? The world according to your view seems awfully bitter, stuck in the past, with no hope whatsoever.
Parents coming together to meet with their son's teacher and their son is not a punishment in most parents' eyes! I'm surprised you would say that.
My interpretation of open dialogue is one in which all parties have the opportunity to speak their mind, gain better understanding of each others' perspectives, and hopefully move forward in a positive manner.
And?
What happened next? Did this become one of those "teaching moments" or did you two just basically go your separate ways?
Never forget perception.
You didn't think what you were doing was racist. And it wasn't - it was just some absent-minded activity with something. We've all done it (well, not swinging a rope around, per se, but that basic sort of thing).
But somebody who comes from a different, um, millieu, one that involves a lot of symbolism and baggage might not be "imagining" ill intent quite like you think. In your case, the kid was wrong, but that doesn't mean you should just dismiss what he said out of hand.
I have relatives who think that even here in the US, Jews are really just one step away from pogroms or worse. When you consider that their parents or grandparents actually had to flee pogroms, that they lost relatives in Europe during the Holocaust, you begin to understand how they might feel that way - and how they might be more sensitive than you (or I) to perceived problems. I imagine it might be the same with a black kid and a swinging rope - or a black T worker facing a guy with a noose around his neck.
Oh, I get it!
It isn't racism UNLESS a Reliable White Witness(tm) can vouch for the poor oversensitive (black, female, minority) soul!
It certainly sounds like the "rule of thumb" for this thread, as it were ...
(and yes, I know, that has been debunked)
Not exactly
I will take the teacher at her word that she was not intending to do something that the student would find threatening. However, that doesn't mean that the kid didn't find it threatening. Perception and context do matter.
Sorry ...
That wasn't directed at your most wise comment Adam - it was more intended as a general synopsis of the "but I didn't mean to/was just having fun ..." crowd's call for "objectivity" aimed at discounting the thoughtless damage potential.
Who gets to define the situation?
So the white teacher has to widen his perception of the situation to figure out how someone might pick up on symbolism that wasn't created by intent to harm? Why doesn't the black student have to widen their perception instead to figure out that the teacher was not generating any ill will by their action and thereby uncreate their imagined situation?
I was once accused of doing something racist: telling an excited dog to "go get her" at a person who had just walked into the dog's house. The person was a black woman and I'm a white man. If it had been any other person coming in the front door, I would have said the same thing to the dog...it was excited to greet the newest person into the room and the intent was purely to rile the dog up on its way. Am I wrong because police used dogs to intimidate and take down civil rights protesters in the past? Or should it be wrong to act as if I had a malicious intent for over-exciting an already excited dog heading to greet someone at the door the way it always does by jumping up on the person?
Part of the intent is to make sure everyone is being treated equally...and yet when you say or do something you'd do or say to anyone, you're branded a racist for doing it or saying it by someone who takes it completely out of character and context. If the other person in the interpersonal relationship isn't going to try to understand the situation any better than I am, then we're never going to get anywhere socially.
exactly - swinging a rope is NOT racist
You swinging a rope did not have connotations of a master whipping his slave. I would be equally appalled, as that is a very dangerous and unwarranted accusation which could have consequences beyond what he might think. Perhaps the appropriate thing to do is to call a parent teacher meeting with his mother and father to discuss their son's reaction. Better to have an open discussion so everyone is heard.
The intent was not racist.
The intent was not racist. That is critically important. If the intent were racist, then it would be much more offensive to all and certainly most threatening. This is not an all or nothing situation. Treating it like that undermines the impact of the accusation of racism.
Funny, my first thought
Funny, my first thought (okay, my second after the Jena 6) was Sadaam Hussein.
Racism Or Ignorance?
You always have to differentiate between racism and ignorance. One has intent to harm, while the other doesn't.
"No Irish Need Apply" is racist. A joke about an Irishman in a bar? It might be offensive; it might not. More than likely the intent is humorous, and coming down with jackboots on the person who told it will probably not make that person more likely to see Irishmen in a good light, and shouldn't that be the intent - to educate towards benevolence, rather than punish?
Suldog
http://jimsuldog.blogspot.com
Hmm....
I hope that all of those kids who wore Tastey Bake Oven costumes will realize the pain that they have caused the entire Jewish community. Wise up kids, you're being racist!
As a Jew ...
I can state that even easily offended Jews can recognize the difference between a kitchen-oven costume (but pray tell where you've seen kids dressed up as ovens?) and a Nazi gas chamber. A noose, however, only has one purpose.
1 Purpose?
And that one purpose is killing/intimidating African-Americans?
A noose has one purpose?
I hope you're not about to say that one thing is lynching blacks. That would be extraordinarily racist.
Or maybe it would just be perversely ethnocentric. Hanging has at one time been the most common means of state execution in England, Brazil, Canada, Germany, Hungary, India... most countries with death penalties, actually. And of course (bringing this back to the original context) during the Mexican revolution thousands upon thousands died ahorcados.
Have a listen to La Ronquita (Ana Gabriel) singing about Valentin de la Sierra... if the mention of him being fusilado y colgado isn't too redolent of something entirely irrelevant yet nontheless disturbing.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c9p9oZQFi7Q
Totally one of my favorite songs. I hope that doesn't make me seem like a racist to you.
I'll elaborate
Sorry, no, I didn't mean to sound like I think the only purpose of a noose is to threaten blacks with.
I was thinking the main purpose of a noose is to kill people. Ovens are open to a bit more interpretation.
So what I was really saying was: OK, somebody's making a stupid straw man argument. Jews would NOT be offended by some hypothetical kid dressed as an Easy-Bake Oven, unless it were decorated with swastikas or something; so cut the crap about how this therefore is a legitimate argument about blacks and nooses (the "cut the crap" being aimed at the poster I originally replied to, not you).
While I appreciate your
While I appreciate your directive to "cut the crap," I fail to realize how my argument is a straw man. My argument is that things can have multiple meanings, therefor making the context in which they are found essencial to thier meaning. It seems that the argument that the guy at the T is racist is the Straw Man; it takes his actions completely out of context; it miss-represented his intent; and it over simplified the situation. The fact of the matter is, he was wearing a costume that he believed reflected his heritage. He was not wearing it to be racist. Furthermore, although nooses can be a symbol of race based lynching, they are not always a symbol of race based lynching.
Coupla things
First, apologies for the "crap" reference. Brain, cut it out, k?
Yes, things can have multiple meanings. However, while nooses are not always a symbol of raced-based lynching, surely one can understand why a particular group of people might not like seeing them, because they do remind them of particular things.
To stretch a point, it'd be like somebody accusing a Jew of just not having a sense of humor because he doesn't find "Hogan's Heroes" funny.
And I'm finding it harder and harder to believe that a guy who grew up and was educated in the U.S. never picked up on what a noose might reprsent to blacks - and that even if he had, that he refused to take the thing off when his co-workers asked him to.
Me too
Matt L.'s point is indeed absurd, on two counts. Principally, kids dressed as tasty bake ovens ... HUH? I wonder what neighborhood that is, because it's not mine. Secondarily, the resemblance of tasty bake ovens with concentration camp death chambers is not so much.
However, I believe that Matt L. has a good underlying point, even if he did pick a poor example. Although the only use of a hangman's knot is for hanging people, really, black people don't have a monopoly on being hung. I haven't done the research, but I'd be willing to be that more white people have been hung in America than black people.
Anyone looking at an object with symbolic weight, such as a noose, is probably likely to relate to it in terms of their own experience, history, culture, and knowledge. So I understand that a lot of black people looking at a noose will think of racist lynching. And that's a good reason not to go wearing one to work. But at the same time no one subculture in America gets to define a symbol exclusively and have their definition trump all others.
The concept of racism, as it is frequently used today in America, has some really bizarre assumptions and misconceptions associated with it. One is the idea of a monolithic "white" culture. (Another is the assumption of a monolithic "black" culture...) Depending on who you're asking, Jews are just another flavor of white people, as are Mexicans. Also, depending on who you ask, African-Americans are just another color of Anglo.
Racism in America isn't a one-way street with only two points - black and white. Yet that is the way in which it becomes simplified all too frequently. Perhaps for historical reasons, it is reasonable to posit "white on black" antagonism as a privileged or especially important type of racism in America. But really, that's just one way to look at people and their interactions, it's overly simplified, and overemphasis may tend to worsen problems. If everything else fades into the background of "white on black" racism, then we deemphasize other real problems such as anti-Irish prejudice and anti-semitism (which exists, need I mention, in black and Hispanic as well as white Anglo culture).
The point I've been trying to make here is that it is terribly ethnocentric to ignore the fact that the guy who wore the noose is Hispanic, of Mexican extraction, and was wearing it as part of a celebration of his ethnic heritage. Is the idea of "white on black" racism so overwhelmingly more important than anything else that it's legitimate not to care about his culture?
A Mexican looking at a noose is unlikely to see the same symbolic meaning as an African-American. And whereas it might be insensitive for him not to know that this noose might bear very important connotations for his African-American coworkers, assuming that he has to live in, share, and adopt their symbolic universe, and not vice versa, is also insensitive.
This guy got some 'sensitivity training' so he could understand the culture of his co-workers better. All well and good. But did they get any training so they could understand his culture better? I guess somebody decided that his culture doesn't rise to the same level of importance.
Bravo!
Great comments, Gareth! For Halloween, Mexicans celebrate death and the costumes represent that. You will see grim reapers, executioners, zombies, and other overt symbols of the dead. His costume was perfectly in keeping with that idea. But now, thanks to our need to overlay ideological motivation onto every action, this man is vilified as a racist. It makes me sick, to be honest.
I'm less clear on the example of the teacher. I'm not sure I understand exactly how she responded to the student, but the idea that her action with the rope was racist is beyond ridiculous. Did she respond in the best fashion? I don't know, but really, should we be held to task for how we respond to a fairly ridiculous statement? Nobody in 21st century America should see a rope striking a hand and think, "that authority figure is about to beat me." Is that really a credible response?
OK, Devil's Advocate
I think that the teacher seems like a nice person and the response was *probably* out of whack with what happened. However, let me play devil's advocate.
Assume you are a student in a classroom. You would be sitting, correct? The teacher is walking around, striking his/her palm with a length of rope. If the teacher is walking, and you are sitting, isn't the rope more-or-less at your eye level as it strikes his/her palm? Suppose the teacher is approaching you from behind. Could it not startle you, if you were the student? And, having been startled, might you assume some malicious intent, even if there actually was none?
Truthfully, I still don't see how it could be construed as racist, though. And it seems to me that all that would be needed to defuse the situation would be a couple of sentences from the teacher.
Suldog
http://jimsuldog.blogspot.com
Truthfully?
To be startled and express that is not ridiculous. To be startled and say, "that startled me, you are a racist" is quite ridiculous. I agree there are better and worse ways to handle such a statement. But the blame for any escalation should rest mostly with the person who makes the intentional statement, not the person who makes the inadvertent offense.
Still, my main interest with this thread is the treatment of the T worker.
20th Century America
I think it's perfectly plausible that a student would find a teacher hitting her palm with a rope, a yardstick, or anything threatening. But maybe I'm just too old. When I was in grade school, the teachers did hit me, at almost every school I attended, public or parochial. A yardstick being beat into the teacher's palm as she paced the rows of desks meant 'Head down, try to figure out if I'm doing something wrong, hope Sister Theresa doesn't stop.' Do they really not beat the kids anymore?
this was an interesting
this was an interesting thread. I see the validity in arguments from both sides. But I will say that the context does matter. The student could have possibly watched a recent movie or read a book that featured lynchings. I am actually horrified of dogs because of the imagery from the civil rights movement. It's unfortunate when people are in such a rush to judge others. We all would be well served by simply pausing to assess the situation and start with yourself regardless of fault, guilt, or blame. It is much easier to say someone else doesn't get it. That could go for the teacher or the student and anyone that commented.
Who knew?
I never realized what a racist Samuel Beckett was until I read these comments and put 2 and 2 together with his use of a noose as a means of auto-erotic asphyxiation in "Waiting for Godot"!
...or that Stephen King was taunting Southern Blacks by having Brooks use a noose to kill himself near the end of hte movie (old white man institutionalized by prison but released to an unfamiliar world and so he hangs himself in the halfway house). You'd think that Morgan Freeman might have taken exception to having a part in such racist overtones!
...and how about that insensitive Clint Eastwood!? In "The Good, The Bad, And The Ugly" movie, I think he and his co-stars spend more time in nooses than they do with their feet on the ground! Good thing Jesse Jackson doesn't watch Westerns!
...sigh.
No
If Brooks were a mean old bastard and was walking down his cellblock pulling out a noose from his book cart and swinging it when he got to Morgan Freeman's cell, that would be racism.
Ok, so?
So...if Garmendia were a mean old Mexican and was walking around the MBTA offices leering at the black employees fondling the loose end of his noose when he got to their offices, *that* would be racism.
OK then
Brooksie doesn't have racist intent. He just has a pet rope, which he likes fashioning into a noose and swinging around as he delivers books.
You don't think Freeman, in that instance, couldn't find that offensive?
Yeah, it's a stretch, because you don't tend to get to prison unless you're a mean SOB, so let's play another game: What's your ethnicity? Let's see if we can find something I could do that would offend you.
More difficult challenge
How about you do so unintentionally?
Oh, making it tough, eh?
Obviously, we can't exactly re-create what happened back on Halloween at the T, but sure, specify the ethnicity and let's see if we can come up with something that I could do unintentionally that would still under up offensive.
Okay!
WASP who grew up in Mexico and then a primarily asian neighborhood in California. I am only offended by offense itself!
Another reason black workers might have been upset by Noose Boy
Noose left on T driver's seat:
Really?
Does anyone else find these reports to be a bit of a noose-ance?
State-mandated hangings
Delaware (not Georgia, not Alabama, but Delaware) held the last state hanging execution in 1996.
You could still be hanged in Washington state (by prisoner's choice) and New Hampshire (if lethal injection were to be found as "impractical" for your case/situation)!
Oh no, the racism!
What the hell is wrong with
What the hell is wrong with you retards? Since when is it an absolute right in this country to not ever be offended by anything another person does? If you're so sensitive that seeing a person playing with a rope sends you into a panic then maybe there's something wrong with you and not the person who's innocently playing with a harmless inanimate object.
Why don't we just ban airplanes because they remind us of 9/11. And trains, because of their use in the holocaust. Let's get rid of all cowboy symbols too because of that insensitive cowboys and Indians game kids used to play.
Once you start legislating conduct to every minute sensitivity, then all we have is a bunch of people crying wolf and abusing the race-card for their own benefit. Develop some critical thinking skills, mongoloids.