A noose was spotten on a University of Delaware street a few weeks ago. A stray Halloween decoration? A hate crime? The police investigated, found out nothing and closed the case. UD, recently under fire for a coercive “diversity” program in its dorms, wants to reopen the case.
“There is no room for such actions in our community and the university will continue to enforce a zero-tolerance for hate,†UD President Patrick Harker said in a statement.
Harker met with more than 30 African-American students this morning to discuss reports of the noose and the students’ concerns about the recent canceling of a residence life educational program.
Over at Colossus of Rhodey, Hube is suspicious.
See? In order to prevent this “epidemic” of noose hangings, UD MUST bring back its diversity program!
The story is so vague that it’s not clear where the noose was seen or whether it was there when police investigated. I’d jump to no dire conclusions about a noose seen, allegedly, around Halloween.
Update: OK, it was a plastic bottle hanging by a rope from a tree. The university president says the important thing is that students feel threatened and intimidated.
Update: A toilet-paper noose has terrorized North Carolina State students.
There’s been an update on this “incident” — more specific info on the “noose” and the initial investigation, as well as UD President Harker’s response. See today’s Delaware Online article.
(My thoughts are here.)
Very creepily similar incident happened here last week in Poway. Here’s the commentary from a writer at the San Diego Union Tribune:
A brick – the Media Aphrodisiac award – to my colleagues in the press for turning what appear to be demented campus incidents involving a noose and the Ku Klux Klaninto sensational headlines that can distort – and then inflame – the reality.
To begin, I don’t dispute that a handmade noose displayed in a Poway High School bathroom is as provocative as, say, a Nazi swastika. In 2007, a noose is an incitement to violence, the symbolic equivalent of “fighting words†unprotected by the First Amendment.
Similarly, a Westview High student’s Halloween costume that evidently could be misinterpreted as a KKK outfit could also be offensive.
To condemn these apparently isolated events is not being politically correct. It’s being morally correct.
But the balanced truth, as I understand it, is that Poway’s high schools are not what anyone would describe as racist hotbeds. There’s no evidence that Poway administrators have been cavalier about these incidents. No attempt was made to cover them up.
Whoever fashioned that noose at Poway High was a creepy copycat, plain and simple. The well-reported trouble in Jena, La., has spawned dozens of noose displays around the country. It’s a twisted fad that needs to die out.
Poway’s Concerned Parents Alliance, an advocacy group for black students, has every right, if not the responsibility, to seize upon incidents such as these to urge the board to do more regarding on-campus race relations. That’s a fair point.
But the media have an obligation to put the isolated events into perspective.
Remember the bathroom scrawls that emptied classrooms last spring? What were, in fact, ridiculous threats from a few attention-seeking ghouls created a grossly disproportionate sense of siege. The press played a cheerleading role in that hysterical over-reaction.
The constant, and perhaps inevitable, danger is that the media, in their desire to attract ears and eyeballs, will push the hot buttons – and make race relations on campus worse, not better.
Link is here: http://www.signonsandiego.com/news/northcounty/jenkins/20071110-9999-1mi10jenkins.html
And I agree with his analysis of overblowing the situation and rewarding kids looking for a rise.
Interesting slant on the Jena incident, which has been (incorrectly) linked to this:
http://www.csmonitor.com/2007/1024/p09s01-coop.html
Ragnarok: Where’s the “interesting slant”? I don’t take your meaning …
I meant that the mainstream news media have apparently distorted the Jena incidents quite badly.
Sorry, I’m afraid I was too oblique.
They did indeed, Ragnarok.
An insidious and potentially incendiary event occurred early this morning in my condo. I had hung (not hanged) from a doorjamb a piece of twine with feathers on the end of it for my cat to play with. As I rubbed the sleep from my eyes and took my first sip of coffee, I was shocked to see that the cat had conspired to knock the feathered end in such a way so as to make sure the feathers stuck to the middle of the twine, thus creating the vile and mocking image of a noose. I have burned the toy and notified the ACLU, who are studying the possibility of suing the pet-toy manufacturing company. The cat is in an animal shelter, undergoing sensitivity training.