Clarence Page offers some helpful suggestions regarding the recent spate of noose hangings in America.  He may be a tad cavalier about the emotional damage a hanging noose can do, but his words of caution are helpful. 

Al Sharpton suggested, in the course of the House Judiciary Committee Jena hearings, that the impact of Jim Crow racism hasn’t changed in America.  James Crow Jr., he remarked, is simply a slicker version of the older version, but the effect is the same.

I disagree.  The effect of the New Jim Crow is not the same as the old variety.  For one thing, the New Jim Crow impacts poor people in a disproportionate way–the Old Jim Crow applied to all black people equally.  While the fortunes of most black people in America are undoubtedly brighter than they were in the fifties (a point Mr. Page makes in this column), the lot of poor black males is much worse than it once was. 

Clarence Page references the Cosby-Sharpton rift I mentioned in a recent post, and comes to the same conclusion I arrived at: both men represent half the truth.  I would like to see the Chicago Tribune columnist expand on these ideas in future columns.