Several racially-charged incidents have made the news recently. Perhaps the two that have received the most media attention has been the case of the Jena Six and what happened earlier this week at Columbia University’s Teacher’s College. As MSNBC News reports, both of these incidents, along a few others, all involve the use of a hangman’s noose as an image of threatened physical violence and seeks to reassert the notion of White supremacy:

The noose — like the burning cross — is a generations-old means of instilling racial fear. But some experts suspect the Jena furor reintroduced some bigots to the rope. They say the recent incidents might also reflect white resentment over the protests in Louisiana. . . .

In July, a noose was left in the bag of a black Coast Guard cadet aboard a cutter. A noose was found in August on the office floor of a white officer who had been conducting race-relations training in response to the incident. In early September, a noose was discovered at the University of Maryland in a tree near a building that houses several black campus groups.

On Sept. 29, a noose appeared in the locker room of the Hempstead, N.Y., police department, which recently touted its efforts to recruit minorities. On Oct. 2, a noose was seen hanging on a utility pole at the Anniston Army Depot in Alabama.

As sociologists will tell you, certain objects or images have very powerful emotions and historical legacies associated with them. For example, before the 20th century, the swastika was generally used as a religious symbol in many cultures. But we all know what that particular symbol is now associated with.

Similarly, the noose has come to be associated not just with the process of executing someone by hanging, but more specifically, with the brutal lynching of African Americans, particularly in the South after the Civil War, during the era of Jim Crow segregation.

But also like in the past, its use is likely to have an effect contradictory to the expectations of those who perpetrated such racist acts -- that is, instead of frightening and silencing the intended targets, they have instead united around this collective threat and has actually resulted in even more solidarity and determination than ever on the part of those targeted.

History repeats itself again, in so many ways.