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[Dalek]

Rainbow Nooses Cause Uproar on Tennessee Campus

An art student hung six nooses, each a different color of the rainbow, from a tree at a university in Tennessee on Monday as part of a class project, the school said, provoking an uproar among students and staff members who saw them as a symbol of racism and homophobia evocative of the Ku Klux Klan.

Passers-by found the colorful nooses hanging in a row — purple, blue, green, yellow, orange and red — from a tree branch high above the sidewalk in front of a fine arts building at Austin Peay State University in Clarksville, Tenn., at around 5 p.m. on Monday, the university said.

They were quickly removed by campus police, but it was not until Tuesday that the administration said in a statement that the nooses had been part of an art project. The school declined to name the student who put them up.

“This is a lesson for everyone about sensitivity and respect for all people and how inclusive and understanding we need to be as a campus community,” said Alisa White, the university president, in a statement on Tuesday. “While we support the freedom of expression on our campus, we also have to keep in mind that there are symbols that have very specific and negative meanings to everyone, especially if context is not provided.”

The university said in a statement on Tuesday that the student did not intend for the project to have anything to do with race or sexuality. It said she had been “sincerely concerned about the perception of and reaction to the display” and supported the decision to remove them, as did her professor.

Barry Jones, the chairman of the university’s department of art and design, said the student made the nooses for an introductory class on outdoor crochet sculpture. She wanted to do a project “about cycles of life and death and, in particular, how that relates to the arrival of spring,” he said.

She used rainbow colored yarn because it was “bright and spring-like,” Mr. Jones said, and she wove them into nooses, which were covered in crocheted flowers, because she thought it symbolized death.

“I understand the outrage completely, and it was obviously a huge mistake by the student to not recognize how a symbol so associated with hate and racism cannot be co-opted to talk about other things,” he said. “In the end it was a really tone-deaf student.”

The nooses were hung without any explanation that they were an art project and without any statement about their meaning, the university said. That omission deepened the confusion and anguish around their sudden appearance, re-opening longstanding racial wounds and inflaming anxieties about prejudice, exclusion and violence.

“These ropes might not have a malicious meaning but it still sent the wrong message,” Alexis Fuller, a student at Austin Peay, wrote as part of an online debate on the school’s Facebook page. “We all know what ropes hanging from a tree mean.”

Students and staff members met on Tuesday in a campus ballroom to discuss the incident. In a statement, the administration said the student’s professor had not been aware of what she was doing, but Mr. Jones described that assertion as “not 100 percent” accurate. He said the student had proposed the project to her professor and was cautioned against doing it.

“The professor explained that it would be kind of a charged image and the student went ahead anyway,” Mr. Jones said. “They talked about the noose as a symbol.”

 

[Guevara]

Roy G. Bad idea

 

[Valhelm]

Huh, I would have assumed it was a vaguely-in-poor-taste statement about LGBT oppression in the South.

This is bizarrely out of touch.

 

[Mr. X]

Roy G. Bad idea

This made me laugh way harder than I think I should've

 

[Viewt]

Yikes. I don't see how you could hang nooses from a tree in America and not think, "Hm, maybe this is going to upset some people," but at least she understood why they had to be taken down, and the university seems to be handling the situation correctly.

 

[Merrymint]

Never thought my sisters alma mater would make headlines. Shame it had to be in such a foul way.

 

[Violence Jack]

Huh, I would have assumed it was a vaguely-in-poor-taste statement about LGBT oppression in the South.

That's pretty much what I thought as well. Albeit poor taste, I thought it was meant to be an intentionally controversial piece comparing what blacks had to go through to obtain their civil rights to what the LGBT community faces today.

 

[NoblesseOblige]

Is it bad if my first reaction was to make sure it followed ROY G BIV.

But yeah, this is terrible idea for art if you don't provide any context with it.

 

[BlueTsunami]

said the student made the nooses for an introductory class on outdoor crochet sculpture

This is killing me. Something as benign as crocheting and this student went all in.

 

[pigeon]

Separating the project from the whole, like, nooses in the South kind of thing, I actually think this is a pretty cool art piece. Ties in spring, rebirth (with the rainbow), death in life, and even alludes to the Norse winter sacrifices. I kind of think it's great!

But like maybe context is also important?

 

[richiek]

Wow, talk about tone deaf.

 

[yanipheonu]

Yeah, I always say that art needs some audacity, but this seems more tone deaf than anything.

 

[Cymbal Head]

Normally I'd defend an artist's right to present intentionally challenging works, but in this case it sounds like the student was actually just clueless.

 

[low-G]

Technically I think this is a case for an 'F'. Her intent was completely different than what any human being would think. If she had admitted it was a threat to hang homosexuals, she'd at least be expressing this. Failure at all levels, send her back to grade school.

 

[Dyson Industries]

“The professor explained that it would be kind of a charged image and the student went ahead anyway,” Mr. Jones said. “They talked about the noose as a symbol.”

Guess the race

 

[NealMcCauley]

Normally I'd defend an artist's right to present intentionally challenging works, but in this case it sounds like the student was actually just clueless.

Just my opinion but that makes it all the more appalling. How the hell could they not see a display like that could have negative undertones?

 

[Slayven]

Dumbasses all around in that article

I learn how to craft something and the first thing I think of is nooses, this fucking country

 

[Dalek]

Guess the race

hahahahaha no kidding

Edit:
http://www.apsu.edu/art/faculty/jones

 

[Fenderputty]

Passers-by found the colorful nooses hanging in a row — purple, blue, green, yellow, orange and red

Looks like ROY G BIV to me.

EDIT: Goddamn first post A+

 

[AndyD]

Huh, I would have assumed it was a vaguely-in-poor-taste statement about LGBT oppression in the South.

This is bizarrely out of touch.

That's what I thought too, and thought it's clever. Then I read the article.

 

[Makonero]

Roy G. Bad idea

Why is this so funny? Because it is. It is really funny.

 

[Skele7on]

Tumblr girl does Tumblr IRL.

 

[sphagnum]

Just my opinion but that makes it all the more appalling. How the hell could they not see a display like that could have negative undertones?

Some people are just ignorant of history. In high school we had a goth kid show up wearing a noose one day and he got beat up by a black student who thought he was making a racist statement when in actuality he was just an idiot trying to be edgy.

 

[Randolph Freelander]

Normally I'd defend an artist's right to present intentionally challenging works, but in this case it sounds like the student was actually just clueless.

Not so fast

In a statement, the administration said the student’s professor had not been aware of what she was doing, but Mr. Jones described that assertion as “not 100 percent” accurate. He said the student had proposed the project to her professor and was cautioned against doing it.

“The professor explained that it would be kind of a charged image and the student went ahead anyway,” Mr. Jones said. “They talked about the noose as a symbol.”

The student was warned and did it anyway. The student has lost the ability to feign surprise on grounds of ignorance.

 

[stump sock]

I halfway thought this was going to be a flashback to that thing last year where somebody reported leftover string as "nooses."

man oh man this was a dumb move

 

[NealMcCauley]

Some people are just ignorant of history. In high school we had a goth kid show up wearing a noose one day and he got beat up by a black student who thought he was making a racist statement when in actuality he was just an idiot trying to be edgy.

True I guess.

Something kinda similar happened in my school. One day two goth-types, a large girl and a rail-thin guy, came to school and the girl had put the guy on a dog leash leading him around. It only lasted for about fifteen minutes because they were basically wearing BDSM clothing. No racist undertones though, at least I think. Everyone was confused.

 

[Kyuur]

I've never heard of or considered the noose as a racial symbol; I generally relate it to suicide.

 

[Parallax]

I've never heard of or considered the noose as a racial symbol; I generally relate it to suicide.

Not from america?

 

[Transistor]

Jesus this is awful.....

Roy G. Bad idea

But this is funny as shit

I've never heard of or considered the noose as a racial symbol; I generally relate it to suicide.

Look up "lynching in the US" and you'll see why it is.

 

[Dalek]

I've never heard of or considered the noose as a racial symbol; I generally relate it to suicide.

 

[MIMIC]

LMAO

So not only was this not an anti-LGBT statement, but it wasn't an LGBT statement at ALL. The person who did this needs to get out more.

 

[kirblar]

I've never heard of or considered the noose as a racial symbol; I generally relate it to suicide.

Are you American?

 

[Nakazato]

I've never heard of or considered the noose as a racial symbol; I generally relate it to suicide.

Umm

 

[backflip10019]

Roy G. Bad idea

This is goddamned funny.

 

[User 73706]

I've never heard of or considered the noose as a racial symbol; I generally relate it to suicide.

What was your grade on the project, btw?

 

[Dalek]

What was your grade on the project, btw?

hahahah

 

[RiccochetJ]

To be fair, if you're not from the US, then I can understand. Of course it's very dependent on whether the poster who said that is from the US or not.

 

[TheOohChild]

That story didn't go where I was expecting it to go

 

[Hi i'm Caleb]

I wonder what grade they got on that assignment.

 

[MIMIC]

I wonder what grade they got on that assignment.

C for clueless

 

[lucebuce12]

Just my opinion but that makes it all the more appalling. How the hell could they not see a display like that could have negative undertones?

It's like that South Park episode. The student was SO NON-Racist that he didn't even realize that the difference in color was something to notice.

 

[Johndoey]

I've never heard of or considered the noose as a racial symbol; I generally relate it to suicide.

I don't believe you.

 

[Seductivpancakes]

How do you combine the cycles of life, death and spring and end up with a fucking noose?

 

[friday]

What was your grade on the project, btw?

Perfect.

 

[User 73706]

That entire article paints the student as the definition of ignorant, considering how many times people tried warning them about it. Even the school handled the situation really effectively, but I can only imagine we're going to have people crying "but muh free speech" or whatever.

 

[Glass Shark]

Shout-out to my alma mater!

 

[Dash_Riprock]

Roy G. Bad idea

Well done.

 

[NeonBlack]

Rainbow colored nooses. Why would you ever think hanging nooses from a tree would be a bad idea?

 

[freethoughtbubble]

That's pretty much what I thought as well. Albeit poor taste, I thought it was meant to be an intentionally controversial piece comparing what blacks had to go through to obtain their civil rights to what the LGBT community faces today.

I'm willing to bet that's what she was really shooting for but that she's now backpedaling in the face of controversy. Not that I blame her...I'd be be holed up in my dorm room if I were her right now, haha.

I think more people would respect an intentional, if highly controversial, piece of art on a pressing issue of the day compared to the whole "I didn't know" explanation, which is kind of preposterous. You're an American, you (sadly) know what these symbols represent.

 

[Thelonelykoopa]

I'm willing to bet that's what she was really shooting for but that she's now backpedaling in the face of controversy. Not that I blame her...I'd be be holed up in my dorm room if I were her right now, haha.

I think more people would respect an intentional, if highly controversial, piece of art on a pressing issue of the day compared to the whole "I didn't know" explanation, which is kind of preposterous.

Yeah if it was actually that I would understand the art piece and that was I initially assumed was its meaning but her meaning of her art piece as she is stating it makes no sense whatsoever.