Your tax dollars at work for the protection and security of white privilege — keeping those Negro agents in their place. Mind you, these are the folks charged with protecting the president, and currently, Barack Obama.
The U.S. Secret Service has placed a white agent on leave after an African American employee reported finding a noose hanging at the service’s main training facility outside the nation’s capital.Related:The service has acknowledged “an allegation of misconduct” at its J.J. Rowley Training Center in Beltsville, Md., and that an employee last week was placed on administrative leave pending the outcome of an investigation. The employee is a veteran agent with the service, according to fellow agents.
The noose was found by an African American officer in the uniform division of the service during the week of April 14, according to those familiar with the alleged incident. That division protects the White House and surrounding grounds. He reported the incident to his supervisor and it was sent up the chain of command. He declined to comment for this story.
…The alleged incident happened as U.S. Magistrate Judge Deborah A. Robinson is expected to decide next month whether to sanction the service for failing to turn over evidence in a long-running lawsuit alleging that the service created a racially hostile atmosphere that tolerated discrimination.
The lawsuit, filed on behalf of Atlanta native Reginald G. Moore, alleges that the Secret Service routinely discriminates against black agents seeking promotion in favor of white agents who scored lower on promotional exams.
Nearly 60 black agents have submitted sworn statements to the court in support of the lawsuit’s allegations.
* Dallas: weapons screening halted at Obama rally
* Other posts on the security breach
18 Responses to “Noose found at Secret Service training center”
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In other news, the USSS has quietly changed Barack Obama’s codename from “Renegade” to “Target”.
This is disturbing on all levels. That a supposed professional thought THIS was… what the jello could this be other than a threat? Anonymous losers sending nooses to Black Professors tells us we are most assuredly NOT living in a “post-racial” society. A man that may be tasked with protecting the life of a Black President hanging nooses to threaten a co-worker tells me racism is a threat to the safety of the American Democracy.
Not to go all hyperbolic, and shit, but seriously, when is America going to wake up and smell the destructive force of hate? I can’t wait to see how thouroghly and responsibly the American News Media covers this…
I probably shouldn’t hold my breath.
Heck the media has to protect the protectors… can’t keep it up, it is just so wrong on so many levels.
This must be one of those Reichwing dog-whistles.
Somebody in the Secret Service is trying to let everybody know that if America is foolish enough to vote Obama into POTUS, they’ve “got our back”.
Just, you know, not Obama’s back…
Just another feature of America v2.0…
I have for awhile thought that the huge reactions we now get to appearances of nooses are overreactions. Instead of giving them the power to terrorize and considering them awful HATE CRIMES, they ought to be considered sophomoric asshat pranks. The more serious the reaction the more power is given to the symbol.
As to this:
I assume you’re referring to the noose incident at Columbia U. in NYC. Stay tuned to the grand jury on this, the presence of which was published the first of this month. That one might well be a hoax perpretrated by the prof herself. Here is a link to the NYT story of 4/1
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/04/01/nyregion/01noose.html?ref=nyregion
including the report of the prof’s being found guilty of several acts of plagarism:
Let me add that sophomoric asshat pranks have no place in the Secret Service protection details.
they ought to be considered sophomoric asshat pranks.
Yeah, because boys will be boys, eh?
In my opinion, even if the noose phenomenon can be categorized as a sophomoric prank, it should be categorized as a really racist sophomoric prank. Not to mention that usually pranks of this nature have meaning behind them. It’s not really in the league of “friendly” pranks like April Fools jokes or mildly inconveniencing fun (short-sheeting, filling someone’s glove compartment with marbles, etc).
And of course there’s the fact that a lot of bullying is dismissed as “just a joke”, “harmless pranks”, and the like. I could list a lot of misogynist and homophobic stuff I went through in school, which was explained away as just a prank.
I’m not too surprised by this development.
Where there is a position of power, there will come those who should not have it.
This is why we have extensive entrance requirements for those positions, and we have to be very wary of any relaxing of them. Police, secret service, president, judge, etc.
It really seems that many people don’t get that fact.
But what about the nooses hung in the trees in Jena… were those simply “sophmoric pranks”?
That shit ain’t harmless, and it doesn’t get a pass, since those sophmores were then backed up by the power structure of the high school, city, and state. To not see the connection, and pass it off as just a joke is pretty blind. Willfully so, I’d imagine.
This is almost as bad as someone writing a book and including a bunch of images with a white woman fighting off the spear-chucking natives.
Maybe they should just post an apology on their blog to gain sympathy with their constituents. It should make this all go away like it never ever happened.
Why do you say that?
The injustice in the Jena 6 case to me was the completely unjustified over-charging of the black defendants by DA Walters for the beating they administered to one kid. That prosecution was outrageous and I have little doubt it was racially motivated.
I understand the kids who put up the nooses got 9 days of suspension in an alternate school, followed by two weeks of in-school suspensions (not sure what that was), Saturday detentions and evaluation by mental health professionals. Since the noose incident itself was not accompanied by any other actions, that discipline for high school aged kids seems adequate to me.
Alan Bean’s Friends of Justice site has a very pro-defendant narrative of the case, in some ways misleading to be itself inflammatory. Bean’s more moderate rebuttal of the “myths” claims is here:
http://friendsofjustice.wordpress.com/2007/10/24/the-story-you-havent-heard-unless-youve-been-paying-attention/
I don’t argue that noose displays are non-racist or harmless. I do argue that their harm is overrated and nothing in the Jena case convinces me otherwise.
Because he’s an asshole and thinks that she asked for it by plagiarizing. That was the point of that long screed minimizing noose-hanging and blaming the victim, right?
Re the Columbia prof and the noose :
Because the announcement of the plagiarism finding by the university was made in early Feb. ‘08, and it said the investigation had been going on for a year and a half. The hearings probably occurred in the Fall of ‘07 and she discovered the noose in October ‘07.
The NYT article on the finding reported the prof’s reaction as this:
The university had security cameras in her building although none focused on her hallway. Those tapes have been turned over to the grand jury. We’ll see if anything comes of it.
Perhaps the occurrence of the swastika hoax at GWU in November, ‘07 makes me unfairly suspicious, since they are clearly unconnected.
Back atcha ginmar. Tell me genius, what would you have done to the jerk kids who hung the nooses in Jena, cut off their hands?
I had no trouble believing the tree incident in Jena was racial (not an emulation of “Lonesome Dove” as was suggested). I am a little more skeptical when it comes to Columbia. Sure it could still happen there, but hoaxes are not unheard of. Her credibility in my mind was damaged by the plagiarism finding.
Did AA journalist Clarence Page engage in “blame the victim” when he wrote “Beware Hate Crime Hoaxes” last November?
http://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2007/11/beware_hate_crime_hoaxes.html
You’re welcome. You just paved the way to all sorts of shit, all you have to do is impugn the victim. Plagiarism might just mean that the victim is easier to harass. Did you ever think of that? Oh, wait, that would be no.
Worked in PA government agency. Co-workers would parrot the company line about diversity in public but back at the Whitest Whitesylvania office…those people, urban, lazy, quotas, not qualified….funny thing was one had her Daddums buy her a college education as she was “too stupid to be admitted at Penn State” (her words), one was discharged from the US Navy for failure to perform (can you say stupid and lazy), and the last was noted for striving mightily to meet minimum standards (I did the entire year in one week to remain hired).
All were BushFans. He spoke of an entitled group, an aristocracy if you will and they respond to qualifications issued by birth.
Sixitiesliberal– these guys’ JOB is to protect another person’s life with their own.
Any of them who wouldn’t protect ANY of the people they are assigned to with complete devotion to duty is NOT qualified to keep the job. There is absolutely no way this should be treated as a prank. Full investigation and a purge of anyone who doesn’t pass the smell test is an immediate necessity.