New York Middle School Allowed Nooses As A School Display

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I would've been thrilled if we had gotten noose display in school. It would def appeal to my dark humor and also quite frankly catch how I felt about school. Back to school necklace!

It's extremely doubtful, given the fact that the majority of the students at this school are minorities, that the image was racially motivated. I think the use of nooses in the image was sick and inappropriate, but not racist.

That it is a heavily minority district is the reason I think the intent was racist.

I think I know what you mean, but please elaborate further.

It's Black History Month.

The noose, of course, represents lynching.

It's like when Jews watch graphic films of the Holocaust. And show them to Jewish kids--some of them very young.

The purpose: Never forgetting!

Never forgetting that there was slavery, Jim Crow, whippings, and lynchings.

Just guessing but if the teachers involved are racists a lot of internal resentment would theoretically build up working in a poor black district. Add to that the backlash against political correctness is leading to a lot of overcorrection, a lot of people deliberately being offensive to show how politically incorrect they are.

Three Roosevelt Middle School teachers have been placed on paid administrative leave while district officials investigate an incident in which an image of a pair of nooses was displayed in a photographic collage in a classroom, officials said Monday.

District officials were alerted to the collage Thursday, the statement said.

The collage also shows pictures of middle school teachers and students, as well as images of sticker hearts, an apple, a smiley face and phrases such as "Hey Beautiful." The photo of two nooses, labeled as “back to school necklaces,” is near the bottom of the display, surrounded by the words “Ha” and “#YES.”

It was not clear who created the collage, how or when it came to be in the classroom, or whether students had seen it during school hours.

The collage had been in one of the classrooms, and a photo of it was shared on social media, school board president Alfred T. Taylor said in an interview Monday.

The board is expected to discuss the matter at a meeting scheduled for 6:30 p.m. Tuesday in the high school auditorium.

State Education Department officials said they will conduct a review of the district’s policies and protocols to ensure compliance with the Dignity for All Students Act, the state’s anti-bullying legislation. "We take all allegations of misconduct against educators extremely seriously," department officials said in an emailed statement.

Arthur Mackey Jr., senior pastor at Mount Sinai Baptist Church Cathedral in Roosevelt, told Newsday a teacher made him aware of the collage over the weekend. Mackey alerted the district, posted it on social media and shared it via text message, fax and email to community members and reporters.

Three teachers since have been “reassigned to home” with pay, pending the investigation, Taylor said. The race of the teachers was not available.

The image, shared widely on social media and by various news outlets, sparked concern within the Roosevelt community, with some calling it a hate crime.

Mackey said he was "disturbed" when he received photos of the collage from a teacher of color who works at the middle school and wished to remain anonymous.

“The only responsible thing to do was to alert the public, to cry loud and to spare not,” said Mackey, who also serves as chaplain of the Roosevelt Chamber of Commerce.

Mackey said that, given the racial makeup of the district, having the image in the school building “clearly is an act of racism and racial hatred.”

About 50 percent of the 3,200-plus students in the Roosevelt district are Latino, and about 49 percent are African-American, according to state Education Department data for the 2017-18 school year. The middle school, which serves grades seven and eight, has more than 450 students — 55 percent are Latino and nearly 45 percent are African-American, according to the state data.

The photo of the nooses in the collage was from an internet meme with the phrase "back to school necklaces," which carries a connotation of suicide.

The website Urban Dictionary, which records the meanings of slang phrases, defines “back to school necklaces” as another word for a noose, “due to the utter despair you feel when school starts back up again.”

Superintendent Marnie Hazelton, in a statement, addressed that aspect of the collage.

“Any content that makes light of suicide and mental illness, whether or not it is intended to be a joke, is both absolutely inappropriate and unacceptable,” Hazelton's statement said.