A proposal to counterattack racist symbolism (enemy, death, how much, crimes)
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In the controversy over the recent vulgar displays of nooses as a symbol of racist hatred, a thought occurred to me: what if every white American man were to wear, on a designated week of protest, a necktie made of rope and tied in a noose as a symbol of solidarity with our African-American brothers and sisters?
We could wear them during the week of Martin Luther King's birthday next January. Imagine trains, subways, offices, elevators, sidewalks, classrooms -- all filled with millions of men proudly wearing ties of rope to show their belief in justice and to make the noose a discarded image fit only for derision, as we embrace and destroy it and rob it of its power to hurt.
The message we would send -- loud, clear, and visible -- would be this:
"Racists, you mock the suffering of the past at your own risk. You are few; we are millions. We stand together with all of our brothers and sisters. Threaten them, and you face us -- united."
Something like this was done in Amsterdam: citizens wore Stars of David; it did make people take note, but how much it alleviated anti-semitism, is hard to say.
White people hung white people back in the day as well. It was a very common practice, and vigilantes were often allowed to hang people for wrongdoing with no court, no trial in the wide open country, simply because it was 2-3 days travel to the nearest town with a court system. In towns, it was very common for whites to be hung for a variety of crimes. Cattle theft, robbery, and several other crimes that now only get a person 5-10 years would have resulted in hangings back in the old days. Discrimination also played a part in many hangings, and foreigners were hung very frequently with either no trial or unfair trials. Lynch mobs often took over when the judge would not convict a person to death.
The single largest hanging event in American history was 11 Italians lynched in New Orleans.
In the controversy over the recent vulgar displays of nooses as a symbol of racist hatred, a thought occurred to me: what if every white American man were to wear, on a designated week of protest, a necktie made of rope and tied in a noose as a symbol of solidarity with our African-American brothers and sisters?
We could wear them during the week of Martin Luther King's birthday next January. Imagine trains, subways, offices, elevators, sidewalks, classrooms -- all filled with millions of men proudly wearing ties of rope to show their belief in justice and to make the noose a discarded image fit only for derision, as we embrace and destroy it and rob it of its power to hurt.
The message we would send -- loud, clear, and visible -- would be this:
"Racists, you mock the suffering of the past at your own risk. You are few; we are millions. We stand together with all of our brothers and sisters. Threaten them, and you face us -- united."
Wear them if you want. The real msg is that most people are not your enemy.
The message the ties would send is that NONE of us is an enemy.
I don't think so. Go to the library... nobody watching you there. Do some research.
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