While the starry-eyed media likens the recent Louisiana protest to Selma, and bloggers pat themselves on the back for a job well done, and over-excited liberal commentators say we are heralding in a “new civil rights movement,” a trend has developed out of America’s newfound obsession with the Jena Six. And it ain’t about peace and love and equal rights under the law.
Hello, old, familiar noose. Welcome to 2007!
First, there was the original noose, in Jena. Well, I obviously don’t mean that the Jena noose was the first noose. People have died with nooses around their necks for centuries and centuries — long before the lynching of blacks, symbolized, with a particular weightiness, by a noose swinging from a tree — became a dark, dark chapter in American history. Since that time, nooses have continuously been a uniquely American way to intimidate and terrorize blacks.
CONTINUED »
