How to survive a lynching
buzzfeed.com
buzzfeed.com
> Yet, just as Cameron prepared for the end, someone spoke up. In Cameron’s retelling, a voice “rose above the deafening roar of the mob,” speaking “sharp and crisp, like bells ringing out on a clear, cold winter day.” The voice — “feminine” and “sweet” — delivered a simple instruction: “Take this boy back. He had nothing to do with any raping or killing.”
i think it should be 'how to stop a lynching: speak out against hate'
In 1930, black people were the outgroup. Now we have a different outgroup.
In 2016 you get huge amounts of social approval points for opposing racism nowadays, so the victims of mob mentality will not be black people. Nowadays they might be drunken frat boys who raped the poor black girl, the community leader who's attracted vague allegations of some kind of misconduct, or the douchey smirking CEO who raised prices of a good consumed by sympathetic people.
Will you oppose the (now mostly internet, thankfully) mobs out for blood? Remember that get exactly zero social approval points for doing so.
Having grown up in the evangelical church, what you describe applies equally to those on the right when it comes to issues like opposing taxation or abortion.
The entire point of my post was to explain the feeling of going against the crowd. Defending those black dudes in the past probably felt the way that defending Martin Shkreli or Jacob Applebaum does today.
I generally am suspicious of any article saying that someone did something super illegal/inappropriate/outrageous if it doesn't provide any real evidence for the allegations. 90% of the time the truth is far less interesting...
I only say that because the word 'hate' gets thrown around a lot where it's neither accurate nor appropriate. Hate is an obsession level feeling that consumes a person. When people throw around the word, they lessen its meaning which causes people to dismiss it (and the person using it) when they hear it.
Certainly, in the case of a lynching, using the word would be more appropriate so don't take my comment as direct at you in particular but more at just the overall internet's use of the word.
And that person did speak up, but only after two people were already killed without any form of due process.
It's totally indefensible on all counts regardless. My comment was only around the use of the word "hate".
Just think about it from your own perspective: how certain would you have to be of someone else's guilt before you would feel comfortable attending their impromptu execution? If some neighbor came to you and said "we're gonna kill this guy, I heard he raped someone," you certainly would pass on that, if not stand up against it.
If we take away the hatred, what you appear to be saying here is that lynchings are well-meaning attempts at justice, which are inappropriately realized. This is silly, at least, to anyone familiar with the history of lynchings.
i labored over the words i ended up with.. i thought about something similar to your suggestion
but innocence is a loaded word that is associated with justice, and even if the others were guilty this is anything but justice
That actually surprised me.
They were so angry and willing kill, yet as soon as someone said the person was innocent, he was left alone - even though he was black (and supposedly targeted for that reason alone).
To me this means the story is more about rape than about race. (At least this story.)
Obviously it's not for a mob to decide guilt - but still, it really surprised me that that was their motivation. I always assumed it was racism.
No, about 1/3 to 1/2.
I agree that racism was a huge part, I doubt they would have lynched a white person.
But despite that, them stopping after hearing a declaration that the black person was innocent just amazes me, it doesn't fit into my understanding of lynching which I always associated with just simple hate, i.e. "grab any handy black person and kill them".
The article also mentions how many black families had fled the town and how they were ready to get another teenager. That's how the "grab anyone" part works. And it's definetly racism.
so in my house "hate" is the "h word", "stupid" is the "s word", and "can't" is the "c word." i imagine this may lead to a slightly amusing mixup down the road, but meh, the limit of my concern with "worse words" is making sure they know that it's in appropriate in some settings and that it will impact how others view them.
And B: 100%? You don't even know who spoke, how can you possible decide what they would, or wouldn't be OK with?
> Not exactly a voice of love speaking against hate.
Or maybe they thought the first two were not innocent, and the third was?
How much did you read? It wasn't even the alleged murder that incensed the mob, but the dubious claim of rape:
"But Deeter’s death wasn’t the principal outrage that wagged on everyone’s tongues: His companion, Mary Ball, accused Shipp, Smith, and Cameron of rape (an allegation she’d later recant). It was this — the story of Ball’s alleged assault told over and over — that incensed the white residents of Marion and surrounding towns."
The claim and fear that black men rape white women is a common theme of racist violence in America, historically and today. Supposedly the Charleston shooter said "I have to do it. You rape our women and you’re taking over our country. And you have to go." (http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2015/06/18/white-female-sexual...)
The victims of the lynching were guilty of being black, and that is why they were attacked. Although they probably wouldn't have had much luck in the racist criminal justice system, ostensibly they should have been innocent until proven guilty by the legal system, not assumed guilty by a racist lynch mob.
Strange how the claim of 'rape' apparently is what set off the crowd to lynch, but the murder apparently was not nearly seen as being as heavy.
Surreal how there are people smiling in that photograph with the corpses hanging.
It's not that strange - people in the US are much less tolerant of sexual violence than other forms. Rape is just more abhorred than murder.
Consider how there is a sex offender registry, but not a registry for those committing attempted murder or assault.
Also note how shows like Game of Thrones have 100x more murders than rapes, but the rapes invariably cause a public outcry. The murders on the other hand are just business as usual.
Not just in the US, either. Accusations of rape are a major factor in the migrant crisis in Europe, after the apparent mass sexual assaults on New Year's Eve and other instances.
I fail to see how this is true, unless you're only speaking about cultural depictions. The incidence of rape is double that of murder in the US.
Sort of like how Hollywood can make a movie in which people fight with fists, knives, guns, lasers, tanks, airplanes and ships, and the audience sees scene after scene full of dead mangled bodies, and the movie can still get a PG-13 rating. But one scene of two grown adults engaging in consensual sexual activity, and the movie is automatically an R or worse.
One of the grisly and horrifying things about lynching is that this was quite common. Whole towns would turn out and gladly pose for the camera with dead bodies in full view.
RACE
Exactly how was he pardoned?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lynching
> Lynching is an extrajudicial punishment by an informal group. It is most often used to characterize informal public executions by a mob in order to punish an alleged transgressor, or to intimidate a minority group. It is an extreme form of informal group social control such as charivari, skimmington, riding the rail, and tarring and feathering, but with a drift toward the public spectacle.
Yes it does happen with frequency in some places, yet it is a terrible reminder of how savage we humans can be to one another.