The Most Evil of Symbols

The most reliable of sources for unmitigated nonsense is at it once again. The New York Times has published an article concerning the appearance of "hangman's nooses" at the site of the construction of a new Amazon facility in Connecticut.

A police investigation hasn't determined that all of the supposed nooses were indeed that form of knot but nevertheless black people in the area are outraged that someone has tied these knots and left them as some sort of message. This isn't a new thing. Pulverized Concepts has commented on it before.

Recently the knot was supposedly found in the garage of a NASCAR team whose driver was an African-American. A similar element of outrage exploded with attendant publicity.

What does this all mean? Evidently the response is anguish that a knot that may have been used at some time in the unjust murder of African-Americans in the post-bellum South can still be seen as some kind of threat. While hanging has been used as an instrument of justice by the state since soon after ropes were devised, this use has hardly been used exclusively on blacks. It can be the form of capital punishment even now in Delaware and Washington. And if representations of knots can cause unease in some persons, what about that of firearms, which have been used far more often to dispatch people of all hues? 

An interesting and undiscussed aspect of the symbolic knot concerns another even more prevalent symbol, the cross. For Christians, the cross is the ultimate symbol of Christianity itself. It represents the structure on which Christ died to redeem all who believed in him. In spite of the genuine pain and torture that Christ endured in his time on the cross, Christians have used it as a symbol of their faith for centuries in all denominations. Of course, crucifixion wasn't used only on Christ but on many criminals during that era and later, including the two thieves crucified along with Christ.

Images of Christ's crucifixion have been among the most frequently produced by artists for over 2000 years. The cross itself stands above the steeples and towers of churches over much of the world, in stained glass windows and behind altars. It hangs on chains about the necks of millions. Why should this be? Shouldn't Christians be outraged by seeing a cross? Or will the descendants of slaves eventually come to see the hangman's noose as evidence of some relationship between themselves and their creator?