Bush: Noose displays 'deeply offensive'

[Amerigo Vespucci]

Source: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/23131433/

WASHINGTON - President Bush said Tuesday that recent displays of nooses are disturbing and indicate that some Americans may be losing sight of the suffering that blacks have endured across the nation.

"The era of rampant lynching is a shameful chapter in American history," Bush said in an event marking African-American history month at the White house.

"The noose is not a symbol of prairie justice, but of gross injustice," the president said. "Displaying one is not a harmless prank, and lynching is not a word to be mentioned in jest."

As a civil society, Americans should agree that noose displays and lynching jokes are "deeply offensive," Bush said.

Read more: MSNBC

[Cabcere]

1. Tell that to George Allen (n/t)

[Bicoastal]

2. Um....what brought this on? Weren't these just a few scattered incidents?

I think its more of a "I do SO care about Black People" moment.

[Sequoia]

9. No, more than just a few.

[Bicoastal]

10. Ok, but I want to see if there are lots of others I wasn't aware of...

The Jena 6 noose...

The noose at Columbia...

The "lynching" comment directed at Tiger Woods...

What else?

[flashl]

12. Noose Watch

[Bicoastal]

14. Yuck. Looks like there was one in LA county...

Went to their link...a noose at the Chevron plant in Pasadena, of all places.

Well, I take it back, then. This clearly isn't one or two isolated incidents.

[superconnected]

26. I saw one myself in WA. I didn't know we could report it somewhere.

I was driving behind a truck on the freeway with two power cord nooses hanging from each side of the cab in the back of the truck.

[flashl]

29. Now that you know, please report it. nt

[Twitch14]

35. I'd look twice at any "power cord nooses"...

...the "traditional" way of wrapping up a power cord looks a LOT like a noose, without being one.

Just sayin'.

[superconnected]

38. No, there's noose and then there's power cord wrapped.

It's common for the current offendeds - racists -to make nooses out of power cords so that people don't tell them to take them down, but there's definitely a differnce. A powercord shouldn't look like this -

[Sequoia]

24. High school in Sonoma County...Maria Carrillo (California)

According to the Press Democrat some kids threw down a noose in front of a black kid (he was adopted by white parents). The kids later apologized about it and the boy didn't want to cause trouble. Some of the students ride around with the Confederate Flag on their trucks (I've seen a few in town which sure stopped me in my tracks...being from "the south" and all). I don't think they know anything about history and probably associate it with NASCAR. Hopefully, their teachers and or parents will get on the stick and do some explaining.

[Solly Mack]

3. says the man who tortures other people

and I'm supposed to believe he really believes that?

I think not.

[awoke_in_2003]

18. Yeah, it is hard to believe

a man preaching "moral highground" while authorizing water boarding.

[aquart]

4. Is Georgie desperate for attention or what?

So when it comes to Black History Month, this is all he can think of?

[TooBigaTent]

5. Besides, he prefers the economic lynching of the entire population, not just one

not-so-wealthy segment.

[Ian David]

6. We should stick to jokes about WMDs under the desk. Those are a hoot!

[Nostradammit]

17. and jokes about hanging MLK

THE PRESIDENT(sic): Well, thank you all very much for coming. Mrs. King, thanks for this beautiful portrait. I can't wait to hang it. (Laughter.)

1-19-2002

[ananda]

7. Lynching is a horrible symptom of a sick and oppressive society..

.. but just because Bush says it's a
shameful chapter doesn't take him off
the hook for his horribly shameful
behavior regarding a long list of
unfair and racist practices such as
the treatment of Katrina survivors;
racial profiling; the way houses and
mortgages are priced and sold so that
minorities are either excluded from a
community or exploited; the disproportionate
number of minorities in prison and the
way they are treated by the criminal justice
system; purging of voter rolls; setting up
of voting practices that make it hard for
minorities to vote, including upcoming ID
cards; and just making the poor and minorities
think they're not OK and that it's not OK to
speak out and protest.

And I know there'm more....

[Va Lefty]

11. Bush is a horrible symptom of a sick and oppressive society

[Torn_Scorned_Ignored]

8. Where was the comment

from Bush when Saddam was swinging freely all over the media?

[xxqqqzme]

13. says the record holder of the most people executed

during his term as governor.


publicans just don't understand irony

[Bleacher Creature]

15. Wow, my opinion of him just totally changed. What a bold stance!!

In all seriousness, it says something about the guy when he has to reaffirm that as his position. I'd prefer a President where that was assumed.

[AlinPA]

16. Bush** preaching about gross injustice? For someone who engineered Abu Ghraib

he is holy all of a sudden. He is phony and slimy.

[Harry Monroe]

19. It wouldn't be as offensive...

...if Bush would stick his head in one of them.

[Jack Rabbit]

20. Amazing! He found an issue where he couldn't go wrong!

It wasn't long ago he even denounced the junta in Burma. Next, he'll tell what a horrible fellow Mugabe is.

[sarcasmo]

21. Waterboarding, A, OK.

[rasputin1952]

22. He didn't seem to mind nooses when Saddam was hanged...

in fact, I think I recall him chuckling about it.

A million things this man could have said about blacks, in a positive light, and what does he do...brings up scenes of violence. The man is a sociopath.

Few people despise racial hatred as much as I, and it most certainly needs to be addressed, but where was he during the incidents that have happened recently?

[BadgerKid]

23. A kinder, gentler Republican party, or

something to counteract Sen. Obama? Either way, it doesn't pass the smell test.

[Doctor_J]

25. Bold leadership from Tweety's he-man pResident

he went on to add that hate crime is "hateful" and that Katrina was "stormy"

[superconnected]

27. I wonder if people are going to hang nooses out where obama goes.

So far I haven't seen "hate" directed at him like I saw rethug hate directed at kerry, michael moore, and hillary, but I fully expect it's coming.

[pettypace]

28. Kudos to President Bush for these sentiments.

NT

[Doctor_J]

30. Hey, you're doing pretty well pp

you managed to lurk here for 160 posts. I will let you hang around for amusement for another little while.

[Hugabear]

31. Fuck that.

This president is racist through and through, he heads a party that is racist. I'm not buying this from him, and neither should you.

[Felix Mala]

32. But Rush says its just harmless fun... The real criminals are those who object...

[KamaAina]

33. He's just jumping on the anti-noose bandwagon

Seriously. Nooses haven't been in the news for several weeks now. And the Leader of the Free World(TM) is just now catching on to this? :eyes:

[DemBones DemBones]

34. My favorite part was when he said

that nooses are not a symbol of frontier justice. That would certainly come as a surprise to all the white men lynched in the days of the wild West. Many whites have been lynched since then as well. The biggest mass lynching ever to occur in the US was in New Orleans and the men lynched were all Italian-Americans. To talk as he did, as if only blacks have been victims of lynch mobs, is falsifying history.

What's up with this? Is he hoping to falsify his own history so that people will forget how he let black people suffer and die in New Orleans, how black kids have died because he cut funding for children's health care, how he sent blacks and whites to their deaths in Texas, how he sent blacks and whites to their deaths in Iraq and Afghanistan, how he cut veterans' benefits while thousands of blacks and whites were serving in the military in war zones?

[electprogdems]

36. fuck off bush

so is disappearing Dem politicians.

[paparush]

37. Bush - A lynching is a terrible waste of a good lawn man.

Now watch this drive.

[daleo]

39. I dislike Bush

But at least he said something decent for a change. Granted, his words may not be consistent with his past behavior, but I will give him grudging credit for saying something decent.

Mind you, I have had a few glasses of Valentine's Day wine, and my judgment may be impaired...

[TankLV]

40. they're only offensive to him because he didn't get to do it FIRST...

fucking WAR CRIMINAL...

[nebula]

41. Things that are deeply offensive

Though, apparently not to Bush.

1. Wrecking the economy and looting the treasury
2. Pre-emptive war, lying about WMDs, fabricating evidence about WMDs
3. Disenfranchising black voters
4. Torture
5. The Patriot Act
6. Outing a CIA agent
7. So on and so forth.