Interpretation is a powerful instrument. In today's society, interpretation has the ability to extract an incredible beauty, or even create a cacophonous social upheaval. The way you (as the reader) are going to construe these words is going to be big. I can see myself receiving an enormous amount of disagreement with this, and I haven't even started.
We are now in a day and age where the historical symbols of institutions both small and large are undergoing some forceful change.
All of this thinking started with an incident that occurred a few hours before my return to my room from a friend's house one night. Upon the many photoshopped creations of my floor mates that decorate the heavy wooden front door of my comfortable three-person dorm room, there dangles a yellow rubber chicken.
The said chicken has been with the room for over a year now and never encountered a problem. Here's the catch though (looks around cautiously): The chicken is hung from the door by a durable twine in the form of a hangman's noose.
My hall mates and I never thought such a thing would be a problem, until we were recommended by a Resident Advisor, and demanded of by a higher up to take the chicken down. We never thought twice about the fashion which the chicken was hung from the door. Was it the noose? That's ridiculous, we thought to ourselves.
The noose itself has no meaning. It is merely one of many arbitrary items in this world. I would almost go so far as to say that looking at the very basics of symbols, nothing has any meaning unless somebody in society puts meaning to it. I am staring at a lamp right now as I write this. I bet somebody out there can somehow take this ordinary item and create an extraordinary excuse for how or why it could be offensive.
It is not in the symbol of the noose where hate lies, it is in the demonstration of how the noose is being used that breeds hate. No symbol carries hate, it is just an object among many objects made up of cells just like us. We humans (being the hate machines we are), then take these symbols, and after using or perceiving them in a particular fashion, and develop opinions of its offensiveness further.
We take what is socially constructed as a hate symbol, and adopt it as hateful. We only perceive it to be hateful or offensive because society has taught us to think that.
Jena 6 was an example of where the use of a commonplace item (a noose), was used as a symbol of intimidation, with the specific intent of being used as a hate message. The issue wasn't the noose, but rather the threatening nature in which the noose was being used.
Let's go back to the chicken incident for a few moments. If the issue of Jena 6 never made it to the media, and there wasn't this sudden "resurgence" of racism in America, would the chicken being hanged have really been an issue? There is no sudden "resurgence", it (racism) has always been.
Although the noose was used in early American culture, it does not mean that the noose was an American invention. My roommates and I were just using a common knot to suspend our rubber chicken from our door-with no message to send. The interpretation that comes with the use of this object creates a lot of discord. The unfortunate stigma that goes hand-in-hand with the noose hit as close to home as my front door.
Did all of this commotion really warrant the demand to take it down?
It is impossible to accommodate for everybody. Somebody can easily find anything to be offensive. People walk on eggshells all day long in order to avoid offending people, constantly unsure where the line is drawn between funny and offensive.
We cannot possibly just compile a list of everything that everybody finds offensive, and then have none of it. Every end has its beginning, and the noose started somewhere else before it came to represent this "symbol" of racism in America.
The alleged "evil" in symbols is all thanks to the ever-growing quality of human nature (that's a lie). The noose is not bad, but people are bad. So I do warn you, beware of your every move in modern day America. Apparently one "wrong" move could regretfully get you into trouble.
Photo: Courtesy of Laron Fomby
