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Yes

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The answer to the question, "is this a hate crime," is so obviously yes I am finding myself at a loss of words.

The object for all who look at it symbolizes death and there are few that would argue that fact. For some people it represents suicide. For others it represents execution or capital punishment. But for African Americans it symbolizes so much more than death. A noose hanging in a tree epitomizes centuries of slavery, oppression and racist inspired terror. The same level of anxiety, pain and fear that a swastika would elicit for survivors of the Jewish Holocaust.

The fact that some individuals feel that the action of putting a "Hangman's knot" in a tree is an innocent prank, is unconscionable. No one in the United States can claim that they are unaware that the Klu Klux Klan used lynching as a way of terrorizing the black community. According to Wikipedia, information gathered mainly through newspaper reports put the African American death toll by lynching, at an estimated 3500 people between 1892 and 1968. The emotional impacts of these terrorist killings are still being felt today by members of the black community, their children, grandchildren and even great-grandchildren.

Hate is never funny. If we as a society do not denounce these so-call pranks for what they are, i.e. thinly veiled expressions of hate, then where do we draw the line? What is next burning crosses on the front lawn perhaps?

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