Nooses happen

        There's little question that the noose hung from the shade tree in Jena, Louisiana, was put there to intimidate and to bring back memories of the darkest days of America's Jim Crow South. The tensions and outrage in Jena were legitimate, and the attention it brought to the continuing difficulties racial disparities in the U.S. has mostly been a good thing. (Anyone who believed "that kind of thing doesn't happen anymore" got an eye-opener.)

        But then there are the bandwagoneers.

        This week, a family in Madison, New Jersey, was pressured into taking down part of a Halloween display they've been putting up for years. Their elaborate decorations included a hanged figure in tattered jeans.

         Nope. It wasn't a dummy of a Black man hanging from a tree, a warning to non-Whites that they weren't welcome. It was a Halloween decoration. One that the family had been using for years.One that's common enough in this state. One that, a year ago, would have been perceived as spooky by the very neighbors who complained to the mayor, the police and the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People.

         In my own newspaper, we (in my opinion) ran a sickening picture of one of the complaining neighbors, eyes closed, hands folded, apparently begging the woman of the house to take down her decoration. Perhaps this woman was truly offend. Perhaps she really felt threatened by the holiday display. My first, and final, thoughts upon looking at the picture were, "Eww! Way to play to the cameras. Way to make us look like idiots."

        By "us", of course, I mean Black people.

        Although I have spent a nearly lifetime pointing out that we shouldn't be lumped into one group with one opinion, I know that my arguments often fall on deaf ears. Journalists talk about "Black leaders" and "the Black vote" or "Black opinion." I should know; I'm part of the media machine.

        So, when I saw that photograph and read that story, I felt, first nauseated and then angry.

         I was angry on behalf of the family who were put in the spotlight, accused of an ugliness no good person should ever even fathom. I was angry at the neighbors who, in looking to change their world, picked the wrong enemy, and diminished their strength in the process. I was angry with the town's mayor and with the NAACP for legitimizing the argument by backing the neighbors' protests.

         It disappointed me that things went that far. Screw that! It pissed me off.

         There are so many real battles out there for us (and by "us", I mean Black people) to lend our energy. Every time we give it over to making a mockery of those real problems -- intended or not -- we lose ground in battles yet to come.