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Responding to a rash of racial incidents in the last year, President Bush on Tuesday denounced displays of nooses and jokes about lynching, and said that as past racial injustice fades in memory, the nation risked forgetting the suffering it brought.
The president's remarks, at a White House program marking African American History Month, were among his most pointed in recent years on the subject of racial tensions.
They grew out of concern, his spokeswoman said, that even as the nation made progress toward overcoming racial inequality, symbols of past injustice still flared up.
The president's focus on race coincides with the attention being devoted to the role of race in politics, with Sen. Barack Obama (D-Ill.) in contention to be the first African American candidate to receive a major political party's presidential nomination. He is drawing the support of a cross section of voters and is finding a deep well of votes in states with large white populations.
"The era of rampant lynching is a shameful chapter in American history. The noose is not a symbol of prairie justice, but of gross injustice. Displaying one is not a harmless prank. And lynching is not a word to be mentioned in jest," Bush said.
"As a civil society, we must understand that noose displays and lynching jokes are deeply offensive," the president added. "They are wrong. And they have no place in America today."
http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-na-bush13feb13,1,3271368.story
The president's remarks, at a White House program marking African American History Month, were among his most pointed in recent years on the subject of racial tensions.
They grew out of concern, his spokeswoman said, that even as the nation made progress toward overcoming racial inequality, symbols of past injustice still flared up.
The president's focus on race coincides with the attention being devoted to the role of race in politics, with Sen. Barack Obama (D-Ill.) in contention to be the first African American candidate to receive a major political party's presidential nomination. He is drawing the support of a cross section of voters and is finding a deep well of votes in states with large white populations.
"The era of rampant lynching is a shameful chapter in American history. The noose is not a symbol of prairie justice, but of gross injustice. Displaying one is not a harmless prank. And lynching is not a word to be mentioned in jest," Bush said.
"As a civil society, we must understand that noose displays and lynching jokes are deeply offensive," the president added. "They are wrong. And they have no place in America today."
http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-na-bush13feb13,1,3271368.story
