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A Hate Crime? That's Noose To Me

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The Tampa Tribune

Published: February 24, 2008

Nooses, as in a hangman's halter, are making a comeback of sorts.

No, they're not being used for executions. In the 21st century, they've emerged as a tool of racial pranksters, but some lawmakers and civil rights activists now want the displaying of a noose to be classified as a hate crime.

Back in November, a bunch of folks marched through the streets of Washington demanding federal enforcement of hate crimes laws against people who hang nooses in public. Organized by the Rev. Al Sharpton (shock!), the march came just a few days into the tenure of new Attorney General Michael Mukasey. They claimed that lax prosecution of such cases has led to noose-hanging incidents around the country since the infamous "Jena 6" case came to light.

"Anytime there's a hate crime, the Justice Department should prosecute, and a noose is certainly a hate crime," said Martin Luther King III, son of the late civil rights leader.

The other day a black state lawmaker, Sen. Larencia Bullard of Miami, filed a bill that would make hanging a noose in a public place punishable by up to a year in jail.

I have a better proposal: The next time somebody plants a noose somewhere, treat it as a nuisance, nothing more.

Institutionalized Terror And Murder

There is no question what nooses are supposed to symbolize: lynching, when hundreds of people, including children, gathered to watch a black man being hung from a tree, and sometimes burned alive. It was institutionalized terror and murder, and it happened thousands of times during the 19th century and well into the 20th.

Michael Richards, former co-star of "Seinfeld," knew the history of lynching very well when he let some black hecklers know what he thought of it during a comedy routine last year: "Shut up! Fifty years ago we'd have you upside-down with a f****** fork up your a**." Then he finished off his racist tirade by dropping a load of N-bombs, which got most of the publicity.

Still, none of this is reason for a whole new set of so-called hate crime laws. If the laws currently on the books are strongly enforced, then there is no need for such legislation in the first place - not to mention that they prioritize certain categories of crime victims over others.

Besides, given the black-on-black crime rate, "self-hate crimes" are a bigger threat. As Jesse Jackson once said in a rare moment of introspection, "We've lost more black men to dope than to the rope."

Concentrate On Important Issues

Sadly, this elevation of nooses to a major issue is just another dodge, a continuation by black advocacy groups of ignoring the bigger crises weighing upon the communities they purportedly represent. If we listed the top 100 things affecting black America, the planting of nooses would probably rank about 98 - if it made the list at all.

Recent books on the history of lynchings, like James Allen's "Without Sanctuary" and Philip Dray's "At the Hands of Persons Unknown," are harrowing chronicles of a brutal chapter in American history that can't be ignored. But we lose far more young black men to street violence every year than were ever lynched, and to continue to ignore it is, well, criminal.

So what if someone hung a noose on my door? I might tell a few friends and co-workers about it, but that's it. I'd never write about because I wouldn't want to give the perpetrator the thrill of thinking he could damage me psychologically, which he couldn't.

After all we have been through over the years it should take more than some dopes planting ropes to distress us. And they can't unless we allow them. Let's not.

Joseph H. Brown is a Tribune editorial writer.

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