And Now The Noose...

My Dad has a solution to the 40-50 nooses that have popped up all over the place since the Jena 6 controversy, but you may not like it.

The Southern Poverty Law Center, which tracks hate crimes, thinks the sudden surge in noose reports amounts to White backlash against the coverage of the Jena 6 case in Louisisana.

Whatever the reason, many people are furious over the appearance of nooses in places like the University of Maryland, a Coast Guard office, even a police station locker room in New York.

But my Dad is not one of them. While many of those voicing outrage are too young to remember the bad old days of Jim Crow segregation--My father can't forget them. He doesn't like the nooses, but says people are going about their opposition all wrong. Look at the email he dropped into McGinty's Mailbag...

I am an older man of color; and I remember when it was for real and the NAACP magazine would name the number of hangings that had occured that year. And, every year, the number was lower. And the time came when there were none; and our society has moved forward - far beyond the tragedies of the "lynch law."

Now, a "noose" is a joke, a semblance of a terrible period of our history that continues in the minds ignorant, stupid people. I say - pacify those simpletons. Start a fund (to which I will contribute) to manufacture replicas of nooses which will be distributed (free) to anyone who wants one. We could, even, have a contest to determine who could make the most innovative noose. We could put the winner's photograph in the Style section of the Washington Post. I am talking art here. I say - let's go for it!

Milton. Washington, D.C.

Pops is being a bit over-the-top here, but you get the message. Make fun of the perpetrators to rob them of their power to hurt. I get it. But I'm not sure everyone would understand. I'm worried about losing a sense of public outrage over attacks on any group, no matter how superficial or ineffective those attacks might be. Maybe it would just leave us hanging out there.