Illinois college student charged with hate crime for placing noose on campus

[L'Afrique]

If you don't understand what the noose represents in America, you're ignorant, almost certainly willfully ignorant.

Frankly it doesn't matter if you didn't "mean it that way" either. You go round painting swastikas in Israel or sickles in Poland, then, well, yeah. Don't come crying to me when everyone hates you for it because you "didn't know."

[Bob69Joe]

If you don't understand what the noose represents in America, you're ignorant, almost certainly willfully ignorant.

Frankly it doesn't matter if you didn't "mean it that way" either. You go round painting swastikas in Israel or sickles in Poland, then, well, yeah. Don't come crying to me when everyone hates you for it because you "didn't know."

Staring at the Sun might be less harmful I assume.

[Bethrezen]

I doubt he will be fined or condemned (or whatever Americans do in this case) only because of the noose. They will search for context, other things he said, other things he posted on the social media etc. And if found, there will be no doubt.

Stop crying and wait for the final decision.

[Muizer]

If you don't understand what the noose represents in America, you're ignorant, almost certainly willfully ignorant.

Frankly it doesn't matter if you didn't "mean it that way" either. You go round painting swastikas in Israel or sickles in Poland, then, well, yeah. Don't come crying to me when everyone hates you for it because you "didn't know."

Ha, did some searching and I must say you're right the symbol of the noose is a whole lot less open to interpretation in the US than I thought.

[Diocle]

I doubt he will be fined or condemned (or whatever Americans do in this case) only because of the noose. They will search for context, other things he said, other things he posted on the social media etc. And if found, there will be no doubt.

Stop crying and wait for the final decision.

Yeah, meanwhile .. beware your tie knot!



.. who knows, a zealous cop may read it as a veiled allusion, an odious symbolism, with all that cloth twisted around your neck to form a tie knot, that is a slip knot, or .. maybe .. even a noose! OMG!

[L'Afrique]

Yeah, meanwhile .. beware your tie knot!



.. who knows, a zealous cop may read it as a veiled allusion, an odious symbolism, with all that cloth twisted around your neck to form a tie knot, that is a slip knot, or .. maybe .. even a noose! OMG!

No, no one in America is going to read that as a noose.

Actual nooses will be read as nooses though.

A cravat is not a freaking noose.

Don't be stupid. You wouldn't go "lol german sjws see bent cross at 45 degree angle, black, on white, in red field, and complain," and now all crosses are banned in Germany!!!!

[sumskilz]

Ha, did some searching and I must say you're right the symbol of the noose is a whole lot less open to interpretation in the US than I thought.

As an American myself, it's news to me. In my home state, which is allegedly one of the most "progressive" in the union, execution via the noose was standard until just last year when the state supreme court effectively abolished capital punishment. As far as I know, no discussion of the noose as a racist symbol entered into it. Nooses seem to be fairly common Halloween decorations. Not that I would find it unreasonable to consider it racist in a certain context, a context where it would likely be considered threatening regardless of the race of anyone involved.

What surprises me most however, is that someone can be charged with a federal felony for leaving a piece of rope in an elevator. Normally for something to be a hate crime, a crime has to have occurred, and then the discussion revolves around motive for the crime. Evidently in this case, leaving a piece of rope in an elevator is considered misdemeanor disorderly conduct. I don't see how that charge makes sense. I can see prohibiting just leaving nooses around, for the reason that little kids could get a hold of them, which would be dangerous, but that's not really what disorderly conduct usually indicates.

[Cope]

Whilst the symbolism of the noose is usually sinister, it isn't as unambiguous as that of the swastika in American culture. It's certainly true that it has been (and is) used as a symbol of white nationalism, particularly in the South, but it can also be used to represent suicide, execution or death in general. It can also be used thematically or comedically ("gallows humor). Whether or not its use in this case is an instance of a hate crime is entirely contingent upon the context, though as sumskilz has mentioned, I don't actually know what the state is alleging the base offense to be.

[Bob69Joe]

Whilst the symbolism of the noose is usually sinister, it isn't as unambiguous as that of the swastika in American culture. It's certainly true that it has been (and is) used as a symbol of white nationalism, particularly in the South, but it can also be used to represent suicide, execution or death in general. It can also be used thematically or comedically ("gallows humor). Whether or not its use in this case is an instance of a hate crime is entirely contingent upon the context, though as sumskilz has mentioned, I don't actually know what the state is alleging the base offense to be.

It's obvious what the offense is. Some people felt unequal, therefore the state must do something. This is truly what LEFTism in America is all about. The Civil War really screwed America.

[Cyclops]

As an American myself, it's news to me. In my home state, which is allegedly one of the most "progressive" in the union, execution via the noose was standard until just last year when the state supreme court effectively abolished capital punishment. As far as I know, no discussion of the noose as a racist symbol entered into it. Nooses seem to be fairly common Halloween decorations. Not that I would find it unreasonable to consider it racist in a certain context, a context where it would likely be considered threatening regardless of the race of anyone involved.

What surprises me most however, is that someone can be charged with a federal felony for leaving a piece of rope in an elevator. Normally for something to be a hate crime, a crime has to have occurred, and then the discussion revolves around motive for the crime. Evidently in this case, leaving a piece of rope in an elevator is considered misdemeanor disorderly conduct. I don't see how that charge makes sense. I can see prohibiting just leaving nooses around, for the reason that little kids could get a hold of them, which would be dangerous, but that's not really what disorderly conduct usually indicates.

We have a similar problem with some hatecrime laws in Australia. The test has been moved from "x performs y act" or "what a reasonable person would expect" to "I felt x so you did y".

Its a clumsy way to address constant aggravating racism, bigotry and other discrimination, and a sign the older tests were less effective than hoped. We had a fatmouthed idiot journalist (true scum) called Bolt who trolled aboriginal people mercilessly and was found to have been guilty of racial vilification (under the infamous 18C clause) not by a test of what he wrote, or of what a reasonable person would think but on the say so of persons who felt vilified. That is a can of worms I wish we never opened as its open to bad faith abuse.

I despise that prick Bolt and I think he deliberately sailed into those waters to make a hero of himself, but that law is terrible, and goes against basic legal principles. It gives :wub: trolls a bigger opportunity to whinge as well, and beat their breasts like martyrs.

The sewer of filth racist scum pour out in the media and personal communication does demand a response. No wonder black people and other smashed groups take advantage of these legal remedies.

Leaving a noose in shared space is at best a bad taste prank, at worst a threat. Be good to know the context, has the nooser been yelling racist threats at people or is he just a drunken college idiot? However I gcan guess why this cliumsy law was introduced: because racists and bigots were operating within existing laws with impunity.

Snide bad faith frothing about the Civil War outcome being bad is a clue: this issue is surrounding by trolling. There's racism built into my country's systems of government that benefits white people, but ZOMG how dare there be a part of the system that give black people the upper hand?

[Ludicus]

Oh come on, putting a noose up is a very clear racist symbol designed to intimidate. To say otherwise is just being deliberately thick.

Painfully obvious. Incites violence.

Quoting from the news,

The university has been embroiled in a number of racially charged incidents of late, including a lawsuit brought by black employees earlier this year who said they had been subjected to racial slurs and threats, including nooses, Ku Klux Klan garb, racist graffiti and Confederate flags,

It's a repetitive pattern, TSA agents suspended over racist display 'showing gorillas hanging from nooses in major US Airport.
---
A bitter pill for our racist residents to swallow (how they hate "the other"),

https://twitter.com/i/status/1169229997367877632

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But I'm not surprised- for racists, almost nothing is racist.
Inter fans tell Romelu Lukaku monkey chants in Italy are not racist ...

Internazionale fans have claimed in an open letter to their striker Romelu Lukaku that the monkey chants directed at him by Cagliari fans were not racist.
It could have seemed racist to you but it is not like that. In Italy we use some "ways" only to help our teams
Inter ultras from San Siro’s Curva Nord claimed in an extraordinary Facebook post that the striker had misunderstood Italian fan culture and that it was a form of respect.

It's a form of respect!
Racist trolls...

[Surgeon]

As an American myself, it's news to me.

It's noose to me as well. A little hard to believe even.

Might've been a fake noose.

[Ludicus]

The Civil War really screwed America.

In fact, southerners had wet dreams of a cotton kingdom extending into Latin America.

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As an American myself, it's news to me... Nooses seem to be fairly common Halloween decorations.

Really. I recommend you: think twice before posting Noose - ADL

The hangman's noose has come to be one of the most powerful visual symbols directed against African-Americans, comparable in the emotions that it evokes to that of the swastika for Jews

[Gaidin]

Really. I recommend you: think twice before posting Noose - ADL

Not all Americans hav read books.

[Bob69Joe]

Ludicius tends to ignore, perhaps willfully, that what he supports is in direct opposition to Europe of pre-1789/egalitarian revolutionary. It's not so hard to come to terms that Europe has been wrong for hundreds of years.

If we should discuss the South, here is one of their contemporary heirs. Do show some respect when you enter the website if only not to spittle on yourself watching a screen.
http://thecivilright.org

Andrew Smith seems to be transgendering, so after October 2nd, we may be witness to another LEFTist purge/firing squad, e.g. Andy Ngo versus Antifa. Although transgenders are afforded more respect and not merely as mental cases from me personally - just take a look at twitter! - but by being caught up in LEFTist politics, the entire LGBTQ thing creates its own impotence by being subordinate to a power structure that doesn't care for them as the people they are but as plots in a scheme.

[Love Mountain]

You're joking right?

[sumskilz]

Leaving a noose in shared space is at best a bad taste prank, at worst a threat. Be good to know the context, has the nooser been yelling racist threats at people or is he just a drunken college idiot?

The guy seems kind of odd, maybe transgender, maybe attention seeking, maybe both, whatever. He's a math major with a 3.79 GPA a year away from graduation, so it seems reasonable to know some context before ruining his life for tying a knot. According to his friend's testimony he had just found the rope there and quickly tied it and left it, so apparently not something particularly thought out.

Really. I recommend you: think twice before posting Noose - ADL

I've spent almost my entire life in a major American city, saw several nooses hung in windows or on trees as Halloween decorations every year, including in my elementary school, saw fake nooses sold as Halloween props in department stores, yet never once ever heard of complaints about them being racist, not even on the news. But you think it would have been more thoughtful for me to lie and pretend that I had? Now granted the area I'm from is the northwest, almost as far from the old south as anyone can be in the continental 48, and the local population is only something like 6% African-American, although that's 6% of a greater metropolitan area of 3.8 million. I also remember kids in high school having nooses in their lockers or small ones on their clothing evidently thinking that's edgy. Not white supremacists though, unless wearing literally white makeup with black eyeliner, smoking cloves cigarettes and going to poetry readings make someone a white supremacist.

When I looked it up I mostly found very recent articles about people who had no idea it was considered racist, for example:

Andrew writes:

"While decorating our house for Halloween recently, my wife and I were discussing options for displaying a realistic skeleton. I was recalling my childhood of decorating a friend's house, which involved hanging a skeleton by a hangman's noose. My wife said we probably shouldn't go that route, given the connection to lynchings in our country's past.

I can honestly say I never considered a connection to lynching when I've hung or seen hung a skeleton or body. I always looked at it as a horror prop or gallows, something along those lines ... I can probably chalk this up to my privilege as a straight white man, but became genuinely curious of where a skeleton or body hanging from a noose stands as a Halloween decoration. ... Is there a history to it that I just wasn't aware of?"

Of course, that's NPR so obviously it's some white guy who needs to check his privilege, rather than what I would argue, a fairly common perspective. Which is not to say people don't know about the history of lynchings, but that the noose doesn't appear to be linked with that in people's minds, at least not where I grew up, despite the fact that most black kids I knew growing up had grandparents who came from the south.

So white supremacists used nooses as an intimidating symbol outside of actual lynchings. I'm not sure if that's news to me or if I just vaguely remember it. But I'm not sure if you realize how utterly irrelevant real white supremacists have been in America during my lifetime, until recently I guess (that's another issue).

If someone hangs a noose in someone else's yard or on their door, it's reasonable to see that as meant to be intimidating, and potentially racially motivated depending on the context.

[Bob69Joe]

You're joking right?

How am I supposed to receive such a statement? I do believe totally that this is all is a simple mistake on Smith's part for something personally troubling, but the state and the institutions have forwarded this mess as another call for egalitarian revolution.

I don't consider myself privileged, or enlightened, or woke. I'm Armenian and monarchist, but that doesn't prevent me from exploring niche areas on social media, if only for a chance to cause an energy in areas of life where people are normally apathetic and complacent about their choices, like the WHOLE of social media and waiting on replies and likes and responses that substitute living and being in reality.

[Love Mountain]

How am I supposed to receive such a statement? I do believe totally that this is all is a simple mistake on Smith's part for something personally troubling, but the state and the institutions have forwarded this mess as another call for egalitarian revolution.

"The State" is almost under complete control of Republicans in all three branches of government. I'd be less critical of the state, and start a GoFund for the guy you seem to feel so sorry for.

I don't consider myself privileged, or enlightened, or woke. I'm Armenian and monarchist, but that doesn't prevent me from exploring niche areas on social media, if only for a chance to cause an energy in areas of life where people are normally apathetic and complacent about their choices, like the WHOLE of social media and waiting on replies and likes and responses that substitute living and being in reality.

What does being an Armenian or a monarchist have to do with the effect of social media on society? People of all beliefs suffer from the degeneration that social media has wrought. I also have no idea what "privilege" has to do with social media either. That term and idea has existed long before Facebook or Myspace.

[Big War Bird]

God this is ridiculous, I hope she him it sues the out of the school.