Wow, well, it REALLY happened at Duke University but I still don’t know about Hampshire.
It’s so hard to get news stories beyond a certain time online… but now I’m curious.
I *can* confirm the guy that self-immolated in the center of Amherst in Jan 1991 ’cause I was at Hampshire there and could smell it. Sickly sweet, bluish haze…. that’s a smell I’ll never forget. Next time I smelled that was on 9/12 ’cause I worked in NJ just 12 miles or so as the crow flies away from it and saw one of the towers standing from the 7th story parking garage at work (Schering Plough – Big Pharma – yeah, I worked for one of ’em once).
Ugh. Some things you don’t forget.
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Unless there’s some good confirmation that the noose was at Merrill and on a tree, my “working assumption” will be that:
a) The real noose at Hampshire in 2008 mixed with
b) The noose from a tree in a student commons area at Duke in 2015.
There was a substitution that took place and the two stories merged through the retelling of the stories.
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What the Hampshire article confirms is:
a) Two incidents were reported regarding nooses in 2008.
b) The first incident was not followed up on
c) The second incident was followed up on with workshops and discussion groups.
But I don’t know if the noose was sitting on a table, under a rug, from a lamp, from a tree, out in public, someone was walking around with it around their neck… honestly, there’s just not enough information to know.
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