Racism and how race impacts most every aspect of our culture and politics remains a top issue in the news. Anyone who is questioning if racism still exists is merely trying to distract everyone from the more important questions about how we end it. This story describes one way racism rears its ugly head and parades as a prank. Or not? Is this any less designed to instill terror than a cross set a flame in someone’s yard?

OXFORD, Miss. (AP) — The FBI is helping investigate who tied a noose around the neck of a campus statue of James Meredith, whose admission into the University of Mississippi marked the integration of the school in 1962.

As a blogger and an activist, I implore my readers to care about incidences like this even if they seem remote from LGBTQ issues, because underneath it all, they are connected ands alike. Racism, homophobia, misogyny, and a host of other examples where a group treats another group as if they are less than are all aspects of the same sense of privilege. When violence, threats and intimidation get connected, it is bullying an aggression, and we must all speak up and stop this type of aggressions.

It is possible, that the was meant as a prank or a joke, and if that is the case, it may be more bothering and scary. If that is the case, the individuals don’t grasp the feelings of others in any way nor have a sense of the historical violence towards anyone who is not white.