General Discussion
Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region ForumsIf someone burned a cross on my front
lawn or hung nooses in my trees as a white person what am I to think?
Is it a hate crime?
DemocratSinceBirth
(99,719 posts)Texasgal
(17,049 posts)people living with me in my home?
DemocratSinceBirth
(99,719 posts)Rex
(65,616 posts)Yeah think about it, if somebody does that to you - they want you to either move or come outside and get shot. Or try and move and get shot or just get shot.
Is that enough hate?
blondie58
(2,570 posts)But i would Report it.
delrem
(9,688 posts)I think you'd have some signs of antipathy going, there.
It'd not necessarily have much to do with you being a purple person in a comfortable purple neighbourhood, though.
But suppose you were a purple person in a neighbourhood where your ancestors were recently kept for slaves by green people, and certain green people had become accustomed to burning crosses on the lawns of purple people, and lynching them too.
In that case it'd be different, I'll bet.
Texasgal
(17,049 posts)This is all I needed. Thank you all.
TexasProgresive
(12,165 posts)but my grandparents had a cross burned in their front yard in the Valley (edited to add: South Texas, I thought this was a Texas forum) because they spoke French in their house. And Yes it was the KKK. They hated all kinds of people; black, Catholic, Jews, Italians, well anyone who was not W.A.S.P. (white Anglo-Saxon Protestant). As a consequence they did not teach their children French. There is no other reason to burn a cross in someone's yard except to intimidate and to express hatred. It is a crime and it is hate but probable does not meet the legal requirements for "hate crime."
To this day I bristle at being called Anglo. My Dad was a member of L.U.L.A.C, League United of Latin American Citizens and to his dying day said that since he was of French descent he was entitled to be Latin. over
gollygee
(22,336 posts)as a crime committed either because someone is a member of an oppressed group, or is perceived to be a member of an oppressed group. So yes, it would still be a hate crime.
bluestateguy
(44,173 posts)going onto your private property to place a universal symbol of execution and lynching (noose) and the trademark symbol of the KKK (burning cross) would be a violent threat which is not 1st Amendment protected speech.
Such actions in a public area would be a grayer area.
hedda_foil
(16,379 posts)It must have been done very late at night as none of the neighbors had seen or heard it happening. And since at least half of the neighborhood was Jewish, it would have been reported to 911 immediately.
The people who lived there were not Jewish, though. He was a blond from Germany. She was also an Aryan type. Her daughter lived with them. The little girl's father was African-American. I've always assumed that the child's presence inflamed the local Klan. (In Highland Park, Illinois???) The whole thing was probably my most bizarre experience ever.