Jena 6—What a Noose Means to You: Our Readers React

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By Jennifer Millman

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Three nooses hung from a tree by white students outside Jena High School in Jena, La., sparked national public outrage and stirred painful memories among many DiversityInc readers, for whom these are iconic symbols of racial hatred.

What are your personal feelings about seeing a noose? What does a noose represent to you?

Click here to comment if you haven't done so already.

Jena would do well to invite the group Not In Our Town to come and lead healing discussions and to help create an action plan to unite people in making it clear that nooses and other such acts of terrorism are intolerable.

—Judy Kirmmse

A noose is equivalent to a burning cross. A noose is equivalent to a swastika, which does not require any qualification or explanation to be condemned.

—Judith Garcia Quinonez

It may be a symbol of racial hatred, but a symbol is not going to put anyone in a hospital and generate medical bills. Those black Jena students escalated it from the symbolic to the physical level when they violently assaulted that white student. I would much rather view a symbol of [hatred] towards my race than be ganged up on by a bunch of thugs. The Jena 6 don't deserve freedom. There are no laws against being rude or insulting someone, but there is a law against violently assaulting someone in a 6-on-1 gang attack. Anyone who takes advantage of superior size or numbers is a bully and should be taken out of society.

—John Hill

John Hill, if you think the Jena 6 don't deserve their freedom as you stated, then you obviously live in a different world. In your world, you don't have to go to work everyday and be reminded that you are black. You don't have to walk in a store and be followed because you are black. You don't have to constantly hear and see a person of your race be mistreated, given harsher sentences, or even passed by for a job position ... So you see, Hill, your comment goes to show that you don't live a life that would allow you to see and feel the anger of not only the Jena 6 boys but others of their [peers]. Try putting yourself in their shoes to see how such an act would feel to you.

—Lisa Copeland

American history and a part of taming the West along with the six shooter, lever-action rifle and barbed wire.

—Mark McClain

The person hanging the noose on the tree and the person intended to find it there both recognize that it means the same thing it has meant in America for well over 200 years, i.e., intimidation, violence and death. If the noose hung on the tree in Jena was not intended to intimidate the African-American students, then why did it only find its way to the tree after the dispute between the students?

—EJ Williams

This is a sick reminder of how evil people were in those days. We must remember that this represents diseased people and some will never be healed. And we know that God is not in this because He is LOVE.

—Peggy Leggett

A noose represents hatred. A symbol of intimdation, fear, control, degradation of the heart and soul and annihilation of the flesh. Search the American history of the United States and read what has happened right here in this country less than hundred years ago.

—Uganda Wesley

A noose represents a racist act. Not just a passive historical marker intended to intimidate African Americans but a racist act intended to be a reminder that the past is still alive and can and will be re-enacted any time these bigots want with impunity. It says in broad daylight, and in this case, on public property, that things have not changed much at all!

—Cynthia Cooper

Although I grew up in southeastern Virginia during the '50s through the '70s, I did not experience the intense kind of racism that would cause me to react to seeing a noose at school or in the workplace. I have never experienced either, at least not yet. Having said that, however, I am now sensitized to this because of all the recent publicity about nooses being used in the workplace or in schools to convey racist sentiments and to intimidate African-American people. I abhor the display of any symbol of racial hatred, regardless of who the target group might be.

—Rhomie Heck III

A noose represents death ... immediate danger ... crowds of angry white mobs unwilling to talk, just destroy ... not just hitting, but mutilation ... burning, suffocating, butchering like an animal.

—Sharon Richmond

Personal feelings—[a] noose reminds me of lotsa cowboy movies.

—Andy Reibson

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