A Lynching Memorial Is Opening | Hacker News Reader

A Lynching Memorial Is Opening

nytimes.com

35 pointskiddz8 comments

Architecturally that looks a lot like the Berlin holocaust memorial.

It says in the article that it was source of inspiration.

After reading that, I realized I've never known a historical number as it pertains to how many lynchings occured in the US.

The NAACP pegs the number at 4,743 total lynchings between 1882-1968. 3,446 were black, with 1,297 being white. 79% occurred in southern states.

http://www.naacp.org/history-of-lynchings/

The usual assumption seems to be that it was 100% black.

Fundamentally, a lynching is just a fancy way to refer to mob justice. People get frustrated with the slow and methodical justice system. Rules of evidence can and do let many perpetrators free, and people are well aware of this. There is disagreement over what constitutes "cruel and unusual punishment", and plenty of anger when punishment seems insufficient for the crime. Frustrated angry people tend to take matters into their own hands.

This is something to think about when considering making punishment less severe or easier to avoid. There is a point at which ordinary people won't stand for it. Our justice system largely exists to appease angry people who would otherwise dish out their own idea of justice.

'Rules of evidence can and do let many perpetrators free' - yeah, justice lets people walk away from the heinous crimes of "walking behind the wife of his white employer" and "denouncing her husband’s lynching by a rampaging white mob". This is so jaw-droppingly idiotic you must be deliberately trolling. Did you read the article at all or you were to busy single handedly rewriting history to read any of it?

Of course the article can point out all the people lynched for essentially being "other". As an expression of hate, or fear. There was a lot of that (and may still be some to be honest).

There were also lynchings where the mob simply believed the victim to be guilty but unprovably so. Or where the punishment would not be sufficient to the crime in their eyes. Those are the ones which the GP seems to refer to, and it's not necessarily trolling to bring up the relationship between those and a justice system that is seen to work.

Gotta love how far "The Grey Lady" has fallen with these BuzzFeed-style headlines.

Wow, that was your takeaway

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