Noose Hung in Long Island Police Station

As a young man, I drove a cab (here in South Carolina) for a man who had been a Klansman. As a teenager in the mid-to-late 1960s, I remember hearing of big cross-burning rallies of the KKK in the more rural communities just up the road from where I lived. Classmates called me XXXXXXX (you know what) for talking with black kids in classes and in the hallways. That these filthy ways are still oozing out of the woodwork, with nameless cowards hanging the nooses. disturbs me. I've dealt with these people all my life, and they're like nervous dogs. They don't always just bite.

I live on Long Island and I'm very familiar with the town of Hempstead. I'm surprised that this has happened in such a diverse community. It will be interesting to see how the investigation turns out. Good story.

Karen, good stuff.  And frankly, the "shock" of all this to some people is begining to annoy me.  Until Jena happened, folks act as of this never occurs at all.  As if White institutional racism never makes itself apparent when we are all dealing with it everyday in this country.   On the East Coast, this is an everyday thing in communities where people feel overwhemled by non-Whites entering the area.  I worked as a civil servant in NYC for more than ten years in a profession where White Flight left many jobs open to Africans who were normally and actively blocked from participation.  My co-workers and I found an African baby doll strung up in the locked area where we collected our tools at the start of the shift.  Before that, a Confederate flag was boldly displayed in a maintenence facility until enough of the White workers complained and demanded that it be taken down.  African and Latino workers complained for more than two months to no avail.

Here's a suggestion to the group, instead of being shocked, accept the fact that your country is based on a premise of White supremacy and actively work to change it.  Don't expect us to take the lumps while hoping on teh sidelines that the situation will simply right itself one fine day.  Get involved.  This means listening to us when we tell you what's going on without telling us that what is happening is just unfortunate.  This also means sticking your neck out, something far too many Whites are not willing to do.  Listening to rap is not enough.  Having a non-White pal is not enough.  Challenge your own White privilege and accept that it takes the same sort of socail change Americans demand of other nations and societies.  Until this is done and internalised, change isnothing but a word.  This discussion has never been honestly dealt with and never will be as long as Whites are fearful of accepting some level of responsibility for allowing it to continue.  Conscious and educated anti-racist/anti-bias activists do not blame today's White people for creating White American racism, but we do demand that all of us, including the ignorant amongst our own communities, stop pretending that racism is something stuck in the past.  I'm quite certain Michael Donald and James Byrd, Jr. thought such things were a matter of the past too.  We are still mourning them both.

For those who may find my suggestion disturbing, ask yourself if it were your people living under such conditions in light of the overwhelming loyalty Africans have shown and proven with their own blood for this nation that hates the Black man and woman to its core, how you would evaluate the situation and your own position in this most hypocritical society?  British colonialists did much more over much less.  And they are seen as heroes are they not?  As long as Swiss banks and German business concerns can still be held liable for their passive compliance with genocidal xenophobia, what gives America the right to preserve revisionism?