Nooses
As far as I know, nooses haven't been found anywhere in Canada, although there was a recent cross burning in NS. Yet another has been found in the US, in a university library at UCSD.
These nooses are not free expression, they are acts of violence and terror. If something like that were to happen at McGill, my alma mater, I don't know what I would do. It would be devastating. It means that there are people that want to see me dead; they want to kill me. For me, it would mean that nowhere on campus were safe. Thousands of people were actually killed this way, and in worse ways, while onlookers threw parties. I urge you to read the account of the man lynched in the previous link. It is utterly horrifying.
And yet some insist that it's no big deal. Nothing to worry about, just some young cranks trying to provoke people. No. This is at the root of American society. This is what some people think should continue. This is a reaction of a significant sector of society that feels its power threatened and would stop at nothing to preserve it. It is perfectly appropriate for some black students to feel so unsafe that they need to leave the school, either temporarily or permanently, because it is clear that dangerous people do not want them there.
Just try to imagine the savagery required to do this to someone. I'm just talking about the "symbolic" noose hanging in a library, not even an actual lynching, because I can't even get my head about the cross-burning. I can't. Try to imagine what you would feel if you saw this in your workplace. What would you do? I know what I would do. I would demand action immediately. A investigation, questioning, company-wide denouncing of the crime as well as a company-wide meeting (if the company is small enough). There would be counselling and such for anyone too deeply affected and time off as required, so that people feel safe coming to work. I know that this might be what the offender wants, but fuck them.
While I am happy that I am not in the US where this type of thing happens regularly, I have no illusions that there are other similar incidents happening here that are not getting attention. Makes me think of our suppressed Canadian slaveholding history. But I digress...
