The Noose in America: After Jena 6, is it a Sign of Racial Hatred or American Justice?

Many have heard about the noose that was hung from a tree at Jena High School in Louisiana this year after six Black teens had a fight with another white teen. The school board dismissed the hanging noose as a prank. A prank! How does a school panel dismiss a noose being hung from a tree as a prank, when for centuries it has been viewed as a source of racial hatred and perpetuated fear in many minorities?

There have also been several incidents that have occurred on the campuses of Columbia University and the University of Maryland where nooses have been found hung on campus where minority students dwell and in another case on the door of a Black professor. If this isn't a clear sign of racial prejudice I don't know what is. As Cornell West, a Black Princeton professor, author, activist explains, "...most of the black community's problems to "existential angst derive[d] from the lived experience of ontological wounds and emotional scars inflicted by white supremacist beliefs and images permeating U.S. society and culture."

One of these images "permeating U.S. society and culture" is the "noose." White supremacist have long believed the noose to represent justice, but to many Black Americans the noose represents racial hatred, which is known for being a symbol of lynching's that occurred in the South. Singer Billie Holiday's song Strange Fruit was what some called an anti-lynching anthem. Written in the 1930's when lynching was still prevalent and alive the song writer, who wrote the lyrics after becoming disturbed by a picture of a lynching he saw. The dark seeded pain in Holiday's voice as she sang the words gives more credence to the horror of a lynching.