In case you missed it, last week, a sinister silhouette caused concern beneath the Connecticut sky.
Construction was underway in the town of New Britain, at Central Connecticut State University.
Someone at the work site had a patriotic bent.
Hence, in honor of Memorial Day, they crane-hoisted an American flag.
Loops are often useful in erection, so at the end of the banner-bearing cable dangled the oval shape of curved, steel wire.
Central Connecticut State University’s NAACP chapter took offense to a "noose" near an American flag hanging from a construction crane for Memorial Day.https://t.co/lzVxL6M9ys
— The Post Millennial (@TPostMillennial) June 1, 2021
A witness observed the geometry and was jolted. They notified the Powers That Be.
That elicited a campus-wide email from school President Zulma Toro, which was obtained by Campus Reform.
“Early this evening,” she wrote Monday, “we received a complaint about a possible noose found hanging from a construction site on the CCSU campus.”
But:
“Campus Police…investigated and found that it was not a noose but a standard steel cable loop hanging from a crane.”
Zulma explained, “A construction crew working on campus hung an American flag from the crane’s cable to recognize Memorial Day.”
The president pointed out that cranes frequently employ steel cables with loops.
However, she noted there’d also been noose news at a construction site nearby.
From Hartford’s Fox61, May 28th:
Protesters marched to the construction site of an Amazon warehouse in Windsor on Friday, demanding answers after several nooses were found. An eighth noose was found this week, prompting the site to shut down twice in a week.
“One is more than enough. The fact that they haven’t found this person, I believe that there are people there who know who did it,” said Michael Oretade of BLM 860.
The protesters called on Amazon to do more to find the person or people responsible for leaving the nooses.
Between that fiasco and the Star and Stripes scare, Zulma decided enough’s enough.
In her email, she condemned the flagrant flag-raisers — for being “tone deaf”:
“Quite frankly, I think it is reckless and tone deaf behavior. We have been in contact with the construction company and demanded that the cable be lowered tonight. We have a team on site tonight monitoring the situation.”
The story brings to mind 2019’s case of interracial NASCAR driver Bubba Wallace.
In Talladega, Alabama, someone noticed the closing rope on his garage bay bore a loop at the end:
#nascarnoose solved. These images are all from the garages at Talladega SuperSpeedway.
Image 1 shows rope “nooses” are affixed to every garage bay door as a pull down.
Image 2 shows Bubba’s bay 4 in Nov. 2019.
Image 3 is of bay 4 after the incident. Notice the rope is cut. pic.twitter.com/2rHdSdgtOo
— James (@JamesWashngton) June 23, 2020
Thankfully, the FBI deduced no one was “the target of a hate crime”:
— NASCAR (@NASCAR) June 23, 2020
The same could safely be said in Connecticut.
Nevertheless, some citizens remained bedeviled by the ominous shape’s persistence.
From Campus Reform:
[A]s of Sunday morning the cable loop and its American flag remained up, and a beleaguered-looking campus administrator, interim Vice President for Student Affairs John Tully, explained to a local news television station that it was difficult to find someone who could safely operate the crane at such short notice on a holiday weekend to get the cable loop down.
To WTIC, John spoke of his personal pain:
“The perception of its noose-like appearance is concerning. We were speaking to people last night who certainly felt some pain, we feel that pain, our president has issued a statement expressing her concern about this and we are working diligently to get it down.”
As for New Britain NAACP President Ronald Davis, he 86’d not only ifs and ands, but buts:
“Regardless of what someone else says about that, what I see, as a black man? That’s a noose. Period. No ifs, ands, or buts about it. Take it down.”
Surely, after the holiday, the flag flew no more.
Evidently, some Americans are triggered by sights which, should they look hard enough, they’ll find all around.
With any luck, the construction crew learned its lesson.
And let’s hope those sensitive to loops never find themselves in possession of both VELCRO and a magnifier.
Pass on the VELCRO shoes, folks. Stick to shoelaces.
Wait, no–
-ALEX
See more pieces from me:
University Student Govt. Calls for ‘Content Warnings’ Before Classwork Shared on Abuse
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