Lynching.
Just the word makes me cringe.
Just thinking about the hatred that must be behind a group of people to murder a person, just to make an example out of them.
Historically, in the 1900s, “lynchings were..a popular way of resolving some of the anger that whites had in relation to the free blacks.”
From 1882-1968, 4,743 lynchings occurred in the United States, 72.7% of those lynchings were of Black people. Lynchings served a purpose in those times. White people needed to prove their supremacy after slavery had ended. They had to show their dominance over Black people and keep them in their place.
Still, lynching didn’t just appear after slavery had ended, it was around during slavery too. Slaves were lynched if they had run away, planned to run away, or were caught doing things they weren’t allowed to do.
Now, in 2017, after a history of Black men and women being lynched purely out of hatred for the advancement of those people, lynching has made a comeback.
Lynching is described as an “extrajudicial murder with the intent of promoting terror.” This means that lynching doesn’t always include a rope or a mob of people. There are a wide variety of crimes against minorities that can be categorized as lynching.
A clear example of this would be the murder of Bobby Hutton. After a chase with the police, he was obtained and told to strip down to his underwear, to ensure he had no weapon. Even after confirming that Hutton had no weapon, he was shot more than twelve times! This was a message to the Black Panther Party, a message that if they continued, they could be murdered too, and that the police would still get off with no jail time.
Put clearly, Bobby Hutton was killed because he threatened white supremacy, and that’s something white people can’t stand. So, they shot him, out of spite, and in order to make an example.
THAT is the definition of lynching. To kill someone because of race, gender, sexual orientation, beliefs, etc., in order to scare and threaten that group as a whole.
As a Black Woman, who’s a part of a Black family, I am horrified daily that it could one day be us. It’s easy for people to just throw off these lynchings because “it doesn’t happen as often as it used to,” but if we start using lynching in the correct context, that is EVERY hate crime against a group of people meant to spark terror, then maybe we as a group can understand that it could be any of us, any day.
Lynching isn’t always white mobs in white masks with burning crosses. Sometimes, it’s white men with smiles on their face and hate in their hearts.
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