Twisted times
Leaders vent fury over nooses, cite Trump ‘climate’
A BROOKLYN city councilman and NAACP leaders denounced acts of hate Sunday after two nooses were found hanging from trees in the borough.
“Some heinous acts have taken place,” said Councilman Robert Cornegy (D-Brooklyn). “For African-Americans, that is a tone that has been set that is demonstrative of no less than domestic terrorism.”
One noose was found hanging from a tree outside the Brooklyn Public Library’s Bedford branch on Franklin Ave. in Bedford-Stuyvesant on Thursday.
Library workers discovered the noose, made out of a 6-footlong rope, and the NYPD’s Hate Crimes Task Force was investigating. No notes or messages were found with the item, a grim symbol of lynchings against African-Americans.
The other noose was hanging from a tree on Eastern Parkway, near the Brooklyn Museum.
Pols and community advocates gathered Sunday outside the library branch to decry the nooses and demand that the people responsible be found.
Cornegy placed blame on rhetoric emanating from President Trump. Trump drew condemnation for blaming “both sides” when violence erupted last month as white supremacist groups protested the removal of Confederate monuments in Charlottesville, Va.
“We believe that the rhetoric from the White House contributes directly to setting a climate that makes people think that it’s acceptable that these acts take place,” he said. Hate crimes reported in the city doubled in the first three months of 2017, to 144 from 72 in the same period last year, according to NYPD stats. The jump included increases in both anti-black and anti-Semitic incidents. “We’re here where hundreds of our young people come every day, every week, to learn, to study. And we come to find out that someone has decided to stoke fear and try to encourage fear among young people and the people of this community,” said Joy Williams (photo inset), president of the Brooklyn branch of the NAACP. “We’re here today to say, ‘Not on our watch, not in our community,’” she said. “We will not tolerate this hatred.”
Community leaders said residents have been placed on edge by the incidents, which they called especially egregious because they happened near cultural and educational institutions.
“We’re all in this together. All of us stand together. Everybody is welcome and belongs in this community,” said Rabbi Eli Cohen, executive director of the Crown Heights Jewish Council.
Kirsten John Foy of the National Action Network called the perpetrators “cowards” for attempting to target the children who patronize the library.
“We are here to say there is a line in the sand that you cannot cross, and the cowards that did this have crossed that line,” he said. “I advise you to turn yourself in, for your own good.”