Melissa--- the story took a decidedly different turn when
the nooses appeared. It was escalated to a different level.

If I'm driving down the street and a black dude cuts me off,
and I yell out 'stupid asshole!' that's one thing. It's quite
another, and apt to escalate considerably more quickly if I
yell out 'stupid nigger!'

Heck, he probably knows and accepts that he's an asshole. But
almost no self-respecting black man considers himself a 'nigger,' as
the term is applied to him by a white man.

New game, new rules, at that point.

I've just invoked a few years of oppression and bigotry in order to
'put him in his place.'

Of course, it would still be illegal for him to come over and beat
the living crap out of me.

That might not stop him.

And a jury of his peers might well find him 'not guilty.'

And maybe they should.

You use the analogy of pads as a misogynist symbol. Okay, that
would be one kind of statement. But what if the symbol, instead,
said 'no wimmen allowed: violators will be raped'?

Nooses displayed to black folks; rape threatened to women;
swastikas spray-painted on synagogues: All of these are more
serious than mere epithets because they evoke the very symbols
of oppression and genocide which cause, and are intended to cause,
visceral feelings ranging from anger to terror in those to whom
they're directed.

I submit that if the Jena 6 (or the black folks of Jena) had been
given justice--- the right to sit under the shade tree at the
high school--- in the first place, this whole thing wouldn't have
gotten out of hand.

No justice, no peace. Isn't that the saying?