NASCAR Investigating Noose

[GoodTaste]

Is "noose" a serious symbol of death thread in American English?

==============
NASCAR Investigating Noose Found in Bubba Wallace’s Garage
Wallace, the only black driver in the motor sports giant’s top tier, said it was “a painful reminder of how much further we have to go.”


Source: NYTimes
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/06/22/...oose-talladega.html?smid=tw-nytimes&smtyp=cur

 

[GoesStation]

It can be an explicit death threat.

 

[GoodTaste]

It can be an explicit death threat.

Yes, threat - thread was a typo there.

Is it just like this?: (If some guy throws a noose like this on the table or car of another guy, would the latter see it as a death threat?)

 

[GoesStation]

Yes, threat - thread was a typo there.

Is it just like this?: (If some guy throws a noose like this on the table or car of another guy, would the latter see it as a death threat?)

View attachment 3545

A noose is a specific knot. The knot in the picture is not a noose.

They're used as anonymous tools of intimidation. Your scenario is not a typical use of a noose as a threat.

 

[GoodTaste]

A noose is a specific knot. The knot in the picture is not a noose.

They're used as anonymous tools of intimidation. Your scenario is not a typical use of a noose as a threat.

OK. Is this knot?

 

[GoesStation]

OK. Is this knot?

View attachment 3546

Yes.

 

[Skrej]

A noose is a specific knot. The knot in the picture is not a noose.

They're used as anonymous tools of intimidation. Your scenario is not a typical use of a noose as a threat.

Actually, a noose is simply a loop tied off into a knot that tightens under load and opens when the pressure is relieved, so the image in post #3 is actually a noose.

The term 'noose' has become almost synonymous with one specific type - namely the hangman's noose, pictured in post #5, but there are actually several different types. They're simply known by other names (running bowline, arbor knot, slip knot, etc.) For whatever reasons, when someone says 'noose', everyone tends to think of a hangman's knot/noose.

If you've every tied on a fishing lure, tied down a load for hauling, done any kind of tree or rock climbing, set an animal snare, tied something to a tree or post, or made any kind of knot that's adjustable, you've most likely created a noose.

Only the hangman's noose is used as a threat or symbol of intimidation.

 

[GoodTaste]

Only the hangman's noose is used as a threat or symbol of intimidation.

How? A puts a noose on B's table. Would B see it as a death threat from A?

 

[GoesStation]

How? A puts a noose on B's table. Would B see it as a death threat from A?

No. It's used as an anonymous threat. It's a very old means of intimidation that dates back to the years immediately after the American Civil War. The person who left the hangman's noose in the NASCAR driver's garage was threatening violence without saying who the perpetrators would be.

You can read about it if you google something like "reconstruction lynching ku klux klan". It's not an emotionally easy subject to learn about.

 

[probus]

In America, B would probably see it as a death threat, but especially so if B was black. The specific mode of death would be lynching, which means extra-judicial hanging. I have never heard of a white person being lynched in America.

 

[GoesStation]

In America, B would probably see it as a death threat, but especially so if B was black. The specific mode of death would be lynching, which means extra-judicial hanging. I have never heard of a white person being lynched in America.

It did happen to other ethnic minorities occasionally.

 

[Skrej]

I have never heard of a white person being lynched in America.

[FONT=&quot]It has happened, just not to the extent it has to people of color.

Venturing off topic, but anyone interested in this could start by reading this page from NAACP's website. regarding demographic statistics and geographical distribution of lynching in the US (the actual study was done by the Tuskegee Institute).

And while anything on Wikipedia is of course to be taken with a grain of salt, this article does at least cite one source stating that prior to the Civil War, the majority of lynching victims in the American South were white males, before flipping to become predominately black males during the Reconstruction period.

This paper points out that lynching was not just limited to the South, but across most of the US. Here's a useful interactive map with a breakdown by ethnicity. You can zoom in and click on individual dots to see names, dates, and racial data. They were still more predominate in the Southeastern US, but as you move out of the South, the victims tend to change ethnicity and race.

What the map doesn't show is the ethnicity of those lumped under the category of 'white'. The cited works I've included indicate that many of the 'white' lynchings, particularly those outside the South, were of European immigrants of various ethnicity.

Still, it's obvious that people of color make up an overwhelming majority of these lynchings, so it's pretty clear why a noose would be perceived as a racist symbol.

I certainly don't mean to downplay the horrible history of lynching as a form of racial terrorism, but did want to point out the sad fact that people of basically all skin colors have been lynched in the US.

[/FONT]

 

[Charlie Bernstein]

In America, B would probably see it as a death threat, but especially so if B was black. The specific mode of death would be lynching, which means extra-judicial hanging. I have never heard of a white person being lynched in America.

Actually, a lynching doesn't have to be a hanging, though that's what we usually think of first. Any murder by a mob is a lynching.

 

[Charlie Bernstein]

It did happen to other ethnic minorities occasionally.

Yes. But it's happened to thousands of African Americans.