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Oct

23

Noose on your door: do you ignore or express outrage?


As I sat outside my son’s middle school today waiting to pick him so that I could take him to the seniors’ home where he teachers computers to men and women in their 80s and 90s once a week, I listened to this show on Talk of the Nation (audio will be available from there after 6pm today):

The New York State legislature is currently considering a bill that would make it a felony to publicly display a noose. What is the most effective way to respond to a hate crime? Guests and callers discuss differing perspectives on responding to racism.

Guests:

John McWhorter, senior fellow at The Manhattan Institute; wrote an All Things Considered commentary about ignoring the hype on noose incidents; author of Winning the Race: Beyond the Crisis in Black America

Anne Reese Carswell, associate director of the Nyumburu Cultural Center

Luke Visconti, partner and co-founder of Diversity Inc; started a virtual map called “Noose Watch”

More links to similar reports can be found here.

If you want to add to their online discussion of the topic, you can go here.

Some notes I wrote while listening:

Neal Conan introduces one of the segments by saying something like, “We can all admit that nooses are wrong, but what do we do about it when they are displayed?”

On cue, on cue I tell you, a caller calls in (not me) and says, paraphrased, “All they want is attention and negative attention is still attention.” He went on to describe how he doesn’t give the kids on the bus he’s been driving for more than ten years that negative attention (of yelling and screaming as he says) and how his method of quietly intervening has been far more useful and successful in ending the behavior than any yelling he’d ever done.

John McWhorter, senior fellow at The Manhattan Institute; wrote an All Things Considered commentary about ignoring the hype on noose incidents; author of Winning the Race: Beyond the Crisis in Black America, responded by saying that he would feel embarrassed if the “scummy person” who tried to scare him succeeded in provoking him.

Gee, somehow, I know exactly what he means.

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By Jill Miller Zimon at 3:55 pm October 23rd, 2007 in Civil Rights, Crime, Culture, Parenting, Social Issues 

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