Today President Bush spoke out against the return of public noose displays, and other signs of lingering injustice. "The era of rampant lynching is a shameful chapter in American history," President Bush said, while he was at an event celebrating Black History month at the White House.
Displays such as these are simply shameful, and disregard the entire struggle that our nation has gone through to give civil rights to African Americans, and even as a "joke," a display such as a noose is offensive and repulsive. Can people honestly disregard the actions of the bus boycotts, sit-ins, and the Freedom Riders by such an action? It's disgusting that people would sink to such lows as to hang a noose. The noose found by 4 African American electricians in a breakroom the day after Martin Luther King Jr. Day shows that racism is indeed still evident, and will hopefully bring about change in the future.
It's not just nooses though, people are being blantant enough to talk of lynchings on the air. Golf Channel anchor Kelly Tilghman had the audacity to suggest that opponents of Tiger Woods should "lynch him in a back alley." Ms. Telghman was suspended for 2 weeks, and hopefully it was a lesson learned.
Words and actions such as these have no place in today's American society. Of all times, I would think people could realize that during African-American History month.
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I disagree. Bush and all the civil rights leaders are empowering these symbols by saying they are wrong. Burning crosses aren't so big anymore because we ignore them, but nooses are because we give them power by fearing them. They are symbols and you must ignore them or they take power over a race. If we get rid of them, then we are doomed to repeat our past like we're doing now.