Good Grief. Another Noose?

Columbia Students Protest Noose Found at TC

A couple of weeks ago, an Iranian-American journalist asked me to articulate my thoughts about Jena and race in the US.

“Don’t you feel that the African-American community is legitimately disturbed by the nooses,” she asked.

I laughed long, hard and somewhat bitterly before giving her my two-cents.

“The words “African-American’ and ‘community’ shouldn’t be in the same sentence together,” I said.

She was taken aback.

“But, what about the legacy of Dr. King and Malcolm X?”

Then it struck me: even reporters from half a world away expect African-Americas to join together in a noble show against discrimination.

Nooses have been re-introduced as symbols of oppression post-Jena. Lynching had been popular during Jim Crow but with the advent of the Civil Rights Era, the practice had fallen out of vogue. It was easier and less conspicuous to shoot someone, burn a cross on their property or blow up a church. Lynching never left the public lexicon but talk about the “truly disadvantaged”, urban violence and glass ceilings became more prominent.

Now that Dr. Madonna Constantine’s noose has appeared, the social issues that have been part of the ongoing discussion about race for the last 30 years have seemingly disappeared. Everyone’s focused on the symbol: nobody asks what it represents in this context or if it represents anything anymore.

Dr. Constantine is angry. In a prepared statement, she thanked her family and community for their support in the wake of this “unbelievably vile incident” and urged students and faculty “to stay strong in the face of such a blatant act of racism”. But with the focus so fine tuned on Columbia the casual, day-to-day slights and prejudices felt by African-Americans, homosexuals, women and any other group categorized as a “minority” disappears.

Jena is newsworthy; Constantine’s noose is newsworthy. I still can’t get a cab in New York City.

A Columbia University student carrying a placard reading “We all live in Jena” made the front page of the Metro this morning. I don’t know about that. Somebody at Columbia was at least familiar with the history of lynching and cognizant of the effect that hanging a noose on a high-profile African-American’s door would have. Does that mean that we live in Jena or does that mean that Jena lives in us?

In a written statement, Teachers College President Susan Furhman, said that the community would gather to talk about the issue. The meeting, held yesterday at 3:30PM was closed to the media as well as faculty and students outside of Columbia’s Teacher’s College.

After the Ahmendinijad debacle, President Lee Bollinger, may have decided to pull the wagons tight on this one. Janice Robinson, executive director of Bollinger’s Office of Diversity and Community has not returned phone calls. John De Angelis, Columbia’s chief of public safety was silent on the happenings at yesterday’s meeting. Even Kecia Brown, Assistant Director of Multicultural Affairs and advisor to Columbia’s Black Student Organization has yet to return a call. So, here we are with a noose, an angry mob and no dialog on what kind of thinking precipitates a hate crime.

The world will get past Constantine’s noose. She’ll continue teaching: she may even get to publish a book about the experience. But it’ll go away and the public will have to wait for another chance to march together in lock-step.

For now, the NYC cabs still pass me by.

1 Comment(s)

Comments RSS TrackBack Identifier URI