Talk:Lynching
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As of today, length is 28kB; someone more familiar with the editing process here should be thinking about which sections to archive.
--Jerzy•t 23:26, 12 October 2005 (UTC)
What about the "Black Hawk Down incident"?
[edit] Tory
is the "torries->tory" link a mistake? -- Hotlorp
- Yes & No. I think there should be a redirect page which defines the usage in the context of the American Revolution. Giving statistical facts (1/3 tory, 1/3 neutral and 1/3 independance etc.), noted torries, etc. Certainly the term tory (which was used to those whom were loyal to england) evolved from the other usage.
[edit] Public spectacle
"A disturbing aspect of lynching was its appeal as a grand event. Among the atrocities dwelt small children brought by their parents to watch, the bodies of the victims were often dismembered and pieces were kept as souveniers, pictures were taken near the often charred body, and tickets were even sold. Lynching was treated as a form of recreation."
- While disturbing, this is not unique to lynching. These are all common aspects of public executions (both legal and extra-legal) throughout history. It's a big part of why executions are no longer public events. Rossami 21:01 27 Jun 2003 (UTC)
- Echo that, and note the spirit is not dead. The otherwise wonderful song "Yahoo" as recorded by the contemporary Red Clay Ramblers[1] says of the word "Yahoo"
- It's a gift from the prairie:
- You shout it when a bad man jigs.
- Mighty good for calling pigs.
- But i didn't notice whether something on this aspect made it back into the article; IMO something addressing this is appropriate despite that poor start, and the danger of trivializing the life and death issues of vigilantism and of enforcement of fourth-class citizenship.
--Jerzy•t 18:40, 12 October 2005 (UTC)
- Echo that, and note the spirit is not dead. The otherwise wonderful song "Yahoo" as recorded by the contemporary Red Clay Ramblers[1] says of the word "Yahoo"
[edit] Definition edited
I edited the defenition to be more specific, along with adding some headings. If you object to any of the changes, please edit this page and give me some arguments. Of course, praise will be accepted as well :) - MGM 11:38, Apr 20, 2004 (UTC)
[edit] Billie Holiday
Is this really relevant enough to warrant a subsection on this page? --Tothebarricades.tk 04:21, 28 Aug 2004 (UTC)
Why not? It's a classic song. Unsigned on 02:05, 8 March 2005 by 213.112.113.71
It is a classic song and it is very important in understanding the culutral relevance of lynching. Lyncing ran deep enough in society to become the subject of folk material, which, being folk material essentially means that it is meant to be passed on in society and not forgotten. The inclusion of this song just furthers the importance of lynching in one particular community, that being the black community of the US. Jay campbell 05:44, 12 May 2005 (UTC)The suggestion above that "Strange Fruit" is "folk material", whether carelessly misleading or simply ignorant, should not go uncontradicted. Poet Abel Meeropol, apparently economically productive as a songwriter for e.g. Sinatra, was a white New York Jewish Cold-War secret member of the Stalinist Communist Party USA, who would have known that his excellent cultural contribution adhered with his party's Moscow-approved political "line". (How closely he was associated with his adopted sons' executed birth-parents, the atomic spy Julius & at-least-complicit Ethel Rosenberg, is not known to me.)
--Jerzy•t 22:59, 12 October 2005 (UTC)
What a mess: The section is gone where it belongs, into a Lynching in the United States separate article , but no one even copied the discussion on it there, let alone moved it, or copied & struck it thru.
--Jerzy•t 22:59, 12 October 2005 (UTC)
- An over-annotated lk
- has just been added at the bottom. WP isn't a Web index, so a Strange Fruit "See also" (that article includes the lyrics already, BTW) would be inherantly more appropriate, even if there weren't a whole section in Lynching in the United States. Further, the #1 hit in my search (which is already and more appropriately in Strange Fruit) is better for its Google rating, and for being on a less obviously PoV site than the domain "historyisaweapon.com" suggests.
--Jerzy•t 22:59, 12 October 2005 (UTC)
[edit] Killing Israeli assassins in the Occupied Territories is not lynching
Killing members of the Israeli military that is illegally occupying the Palestinian territories is not "lynching" just like the Palestinian "terrorists" and civilians killed by Israeli soldiers are not described as "murdered" in any article in Wikipedia. Lynching is murder. Do the cases of Israeli settlers killing palestinian civilians ever get described as lynching? No. It's a POV problem due to Israeli domination of English language media: ""The extent to which some journalism simply assumes the Israeli perspective can be seen if the statements are 'reversed ' and presented as Palestinian actions. The group did NOT find any reports stating that 'The Palestinian attacks were in retaliation for the murder of those resisting the illegal Israeli occupation'." "A news journalism which seeks neutrality should not endorse any point of view, but there were many departures from this principle." "Words such as 'murder', 'atrocity', 'lynching' and 'savage cold-blooded killing' were only used to describe Israeli deaths but not those of Palestinians." "...only 30% (believed that more Palestinians had died than Israelis). The same number believed either that the Israelis had the most casualties or that casualties were equal for both sides." " [2]
- Lynching is an extra-judicial killing by a mob. Were the Israeli reservists brought to a court and sentenced to be torn limb from limb by a howling bloodthirsty mob? If not, it was a lynching. Jayjg 23:32, 22 Nov 2004 (UTC)
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- You are very colorful in your POV terms when two Israeli assassins are captured and killed but you are very neutral in your description of atrocities when the IDF uses US-taxpayer supplied missiles to blow Palestinian children and babies to pieces and when bloodthirsty Jews massacre dozens of civilians in Jenin and Jabalia. Why? Because you are an obvious Zionist bigot. --Alberuni 03:44, 23 Nov 2004 (UTC)
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- Your response doesn't address the issue, and is a personal attack. Jayjg 11:12, 23 Nov 2004 (UTC)
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- Alberuni, please do not call other contributors names such as Zionist or bigot. Jay, please ignore personal remarks; if you can't think of anything to say which will continue a fruitful dialogue, then just say nothing. --user:Ed Poor (talk) 19:16, Nov 23, 2004 (UTC)
[edit] Zio POV?
Exactly how could a paragraph using as references Human Rights Watch, Amnesty International, the BBC, the Guardian, B'Tselem, and the pro-Palestinian website "From Occupied Palestine" be "Zio POV"? Jayjg 16:59, 23 Nov 2004 (UTC)
- Because as usual with your incessant propagandistic pro-Israeli POV pushing, it is the Zionist Israeli perspective and only the Zionist perspective that ever gets through. You are a base apologist for the non-stop atrocities committed by Zionists in the name of Israel and Judaism. Why aren't the names Rachel Corrie Tom Hurndall and Ahmed Abdel Hamida [3] included in the list of victims of Israeli pogroms, extrajudicial assassinations and other murders that Jews commit in lynching Palestinians and their supporters?[4]. Yes, the surviving Palestinians lynched Baruch Goldstein. Why do you see only the "bloodthirsty mob" that kills Israelis but you neglect to note that the Israelis and their collaborators are mass murderers themselves. --Alberuni 18:17, 23 Nov 2004 (UTC)
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- Are you saying that Human Rights Watch, Amnesty International, the BBC, the Guardian, B'Tselem, and the pro-Palestinian website "From Occupied Palestine" are engaging in "propagandistic pro-Israeli POV pushing" and promoting a "Zionist Israeli perspective"? All of these groups have stated that lynchings are going on the territories, and have described specific and infamous ones. NPOV demands that you present a perspective, and provide reasonable sources. Do you object to them as sources? Regarding the names you have raised, are you claiming that Corrie and Hurndall were lynched? And is the killing of Hamida typical of the conflict? And who mentioned Goldstein, I didn't see that in the paragraph? Jayjg 18:28, 23 Nov 2004 (UTC)
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- So in the minority of deaths when Israelis are killed, you think it is representative of the conflict but as in most of the deaths, when Israelis kill Arabs, you wonder if it's typical of the conflict. Your POV is disgusting. Yes, the entire Zionist enterprise is a genocidal campaign against the native Palestinians by supremacist Jews. Zionists lynching Palestinians has become so routine that you consider it normal. --Alberuni 19:04, 23 Nov 2004 (UTC)
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- Actually, what I think is more representative is the lynchings of Arab "collaborators" by other Arabs, which seems by far to be the most common kind of lynching going on. As for the Ramallah lynching, it was perhaps the most famous lynching in the conflict, and one that probably had the most effect in terms of hardening Israeli attitudes and leading to the election of right-wingers. Regarding "Zionists lynching Palestinians" becoming "routine", have there been other similar incidents besides the one you just listed above (which actually was a lynching of an Arab-American, not a Palestinian)? Jayjg 20:38, 23 Nov 2004 (UTC)
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- Like I said, the extrajudicial murder of Palestinians by Israelis; civilians, settlers and the IDF (none of whom are ever prosecuted or punished) is so routine that you don't even recognize it as a lynching. It's just business as usual in the Jewish state. --Alberuni 21:15, 23 Nov 2004 (UTC)
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- Lynching has the aspect of being carried out by a mob. Do you have any other examples like Hamida? Jayjg 21:24, 23 Nov 2004 (UTC)
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I was going to make another comment about "no personal remarks" but I had to chuckle:
- your incessant propagandistic pro-Israeli POV pushing
the israeli lynch is really anti-israel POV the Arab-american who "accidantly" slided through a bus station got out of the car (which was propably still close to the station filled with people) and shouted "alkha ahbar" and then he was shot (with the emphasis on "shot") (by one person not a mob) lynching in my understanding is either brutal execution by beating or carrying the lynched and then hanging him. many of the suicide bombers shout "alkha ahbar" before detonating the bomb (or so the media describes) so it was much more of a self-protection then a lynch —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 85.250.80.195 (talk • contribs) 26 September 2006.This is an interpolation in a nearly 2-year-old discussion.
The alliteration was too punchy and powerful for personal palliatives... ;-) --user:Ed Poor (talk) 19:19, Nov 23, 2004 (UTC)
[edit] Page protection
I locked the page because of repeated deletion of disputed text. I glanced at the 'edit summaries' in page history and looked at 2 or 3 diffs. I have NOT read this talk page yet.
Disclaimer: I am an "interested party", so if anyone disputes my objectivity in taking an admin action, speak up quick! I will recuse myself if need be. --user:Ed Poor (talk) 19:12, Nov 23, 2004 (UTC)
- I, as a party w/o a conventional POV re: matters of Israeli - Palistine, and with an interest in the subject of Mob justice generally, offer my services as well. I request that Ed Poor not recuse himself, and, as usual, for Jayjg & Alberuni to seek mediation. [[User:Sam Spade|Sam Spade Arb Com election]] 19:20, 23 Nov 2004 (UTC)
- This isn't between Alberuni and me. Jayjg 21:32, 23 Nov 2004 (UTC)
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- All I know is I see the 2 of you in conflict regularly. I admit I see one of you being the agressor, but either way, the Wikipedia:Conflict resolution should be followed, and the high ground must be taken. [[User:Sam Spade|Sam Spade Arb Com election]] 23:30, 23 Nov 2004 (UTC)
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- Ed, if you've protected it, you should probably put the {{protected}} template in it, and list it on the page of protected pages. Jayjg 21:33, 23 Nov 2004 (UTC)
[edit] Points of View
Okay, now to serious matters:
Alberuni's viewpoint is that the Israeli presence in WB/GS is morally wrong. Indeed, he has adopted the commonly expressed Arab POV that their presence constitutes an "illegal occupation".
Alberuni's POV is in contrast with that expressed at palestinefacts.org which rebuts the "claim" that Israel's presence is (a) "illegal" or (b) an occupation.
I suggest that we drop lynching for a moment and work together on the Occupied Palestinian Territories article. Either the Wikipedia (a) should endorse the Arab POV that the West Bank and Gaza Strip are occupied territories, or (b) it should remain neutral on this disputed matter and instead explain WHY the opposing sides disagree about this point. (Even if it's a case of Israel's POV is only a few hundred thousand "extremist" Jews, and Arab POV is the overwhelming majority of the world.) --user:Ed Poor (talk) 19:27, Nov 23, 2004 (UTC)
- Please do not express my views on my behalf. Speak for yourself. Dealing with the Occupied territories should be no different than dealing with the Malvinas Islands, Taiwan or territory of Kashmir. Express all POVs and attribute them accordingly. Instead, Wikipedia hasbarists work overtime to promote their POV and bury the Palestinians' into nothingness, as usual. --Alberuni 21:19, 23 Nov 2004 (UTC)</nowiki>
Sorry, I was only guessing. If I've mis-stating your views in an attempt to mediate this dispute between you and Jay, I owe you an apology. Perhaps we should just focus on improving the article itself. --user:Ed Poor (talk) 21:44, Nov 23, 2004 (UTC)
[edit] Jayjg and Viditas deleting lynching by Israelis
Typical one-sided POV Zionists. I provide links to incidents and they delete it. Also, Palestine is not a country - yet. They insist on calling the region Palestine when it refers to crimes like lynching when in fact the region is Israel and the Occupied Territories, or Israel and the Occupied West Bank and Gaza. Why do they lie? Because they are ZIONIST REVISIONISTS, history deniers and partisan POV pushers. --Alberuni 19:36, 8 Dec 2004 (UTC)
- You've done a lot more than insert new information, you've POVd a lot of existing text. As for your insertions, the language is POV, and the sources are rather surprising for someone who constantly complains about the sources others use. The existing information uses sources like Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch, B'Tselem, BBC, the Guardian. You should practice what you preach. Jayjg 20:02, 8 Dec 2004 (UTC)
- I've added info on the incidents in your links to the article as follows: "There have also been incidents of Israelis lynching or attempting to lynch Arabs suspected of terrorism, including the beating and killing of an American tourist after he accidentally skidded his car into a Jerusalem bus, killing an Israeli woman, and an attempt on an innocent Arab bystander after a Palestinian suicide bombing." --MPerel 22:22, Dec 8, 2004 (UTC)
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- Thanks MPerel. You have a better understanding of NPOV. --Alberuni 00:47, 9 Dec 2004 (UTC)
[edit] guatamala
i recently saw on tv scenes of gang members being lynched in guatamala by a mob in a town centre in broad daylight they were badly beaten before being burned aliveBouse23 14:19, 26 January 2007 (UTC)
[edit] Lynching in Iraq
"On March 31, 2004, Iraqi citizens killed four American Blackwater USA security guards operating in Fallujah, Iraq in support of the Coalition Provisional Authority."
How is this an extrajudicial execution? --Vorpalbla 14:32, 3/27/05
Whatever else it may be, the entire section
- ==Iraq==
- On March 31, 2004, Iraqi citizens killed four American Blackwater USA security guards operating in Fallujah, Iraq in support of the Coalition Provisional Authority. The car in which the four Americans were driving was attacked by guerillas. All four men were killed. After the car and people were burned, the bodies were mutilated and two of them were hanged from the main bridge over the Euphrates leading to the city.
is a serious (however ambiguous) failure of NPoV, in singling out one incident among the thousands (tens or hundreds of thousands?) of killings by people who are neither peace officers nor soldiers of anything but (at most and only in some cases) a thoroughly collapsed lawless dictatorship. At the very least it needs to say why this deserves singling out. At this point, putting any such section in the article w/o exhaustive discussion on this talk page should be treated as vandalism.
--Jerzy•t 18:24, 12 October 2005 (UTC)
[edit] Reboot reversion
I removed:
" Lynching of black people was not officially recognised as a crime (although attempts to prosecute were often made under other pretences) in the United States until 1940. "
a contribution from an anonymous (somehow I don't think the ip is meaningful) editor. It is somewhat misleading. There were in many places no "anti-lynching laws" but to say it was not "officially" recognized as crime isn't entirely accurate. As I understand it, local law enforcement simply chose not to enforce less-specific laws in these instances (and sometimes even participated in the lynchings). There is no specific law about murdering someone by drowning them in Kool-aide, but that doesn't mean its not covered. Its the wording I think is misleading. --Reboot 22:40 EST, 4-Apr-2005
- I agree with [User:Reboot]. Even now, "lynching" is not a specific federal crime. Murder is a crime in each state. The problem was that the laws were not enforced well. The anti-lynching laws that were debated in the '30s and '40s were attempts to make failing to protect a prisoner a new federal crime. Morris 02:40, Apr 15, 2005 (UTC)
[edit] Israel issue
While I have no opinion on this, I reveretd edit "One fringe news report, from an Egyptian and notoriously anti-Israel source trumpeted conspircay theories that the Jews were undercover agents or assassins, a claim that is demonstrably false."
back to
"Some news reports said that they were suspected of being undercover agents or assassins."
I have added an NPOV check message.
Saksham 15:17, 17 Apr 2005 (UTC)Saksham
[edit] Lynching and Capital Punishment
I have done a bit of research on lynching in the southern parts of the US during the 1800's, but I would like to know a bit more. Has anyone done any? Would he or she like to pass some info along to me, striclty for my own knowledge? I am particularly interested in how and why lynching began to take the place of capital punishment in the standard legal systems. What was going on with them? Were they too relaxed? Were people simply more blood thirsty? I am truly interested in this phenomenon. Jay campbell 05:58, 12 May 2005 (UTC)
[edit] Images
I've added several public domain images. They're very disturbing to look at, of course. I hope nobody will see this as sensationalistic, or disrespectful to the victims. I included the Waco image specifically because it was so horrific; I don't think we gain anything by letting people avoid thinking about how horrible the reality was. In the photo in the lead section, I added some explanation at the bottom of the caption so that it would have the right context, and people wouldn't conclude that the victim must have been a criminal; this could be seen as redundant, but I think it's important to provide that context, since the photo is the first thing people are going to see when they read the article. In the Waco case, my inclusion of the details of the trial (he confessed) could be seen as a justification for the lynching, but I think it's important to give all the facts. I think lynching was horrible enough without trying to give a slant to the facts.--Bcrowell 18:09, 19 Jun 2005 (UTC)
I found some relevant info on the page Wikipedia:Profanity: "Images, particularly photos, often have a greater impact than words. Therefore, it may be preferable not to embed possibly offensive images in articles, but rather use a [[media:image name]] link with an appropriate warning. On the other hand, if the page title already tells the reader what to expect (e.g. Erotic art in Pompeii), such a warning may be unnecessary. Censorship should be avoided, if an image adds something to an article." It seems to me that these images do add something to the article, and the title of the page does already tell the reader what to expect.--Bcrowell 18:24, 19 Jun 2005 (UTC)
- I certainly appreciate your pitching in to improve the article, but I'm getting concerned that it looks image-heavy. I changed the fomratting of a few to mix it up a little (all on the right looks lousy), but I'm wondering if each of the individual lynching images actually adds something substantial to the article. (Keep in mind that some of them have their own articles.) --Dhartung | Talk 23:12, 21 Jun 2005 (UTC)
- This is a big, important subject in U.S. history, and I think the text should be expanded, which would also have the effect of reducing the image-heaviness. Here's what I feel is the relevance of the individual images:
- Lige Daniels, 1920: Shows that lynching was a socially approved thing, not something that was always done in the middle of the night by a few violent people.
- unknown victim, 1889: The only image in the article from the period of Reconstruction.
- Jesse Washington, 1916: This is a hard image to look at. I think it shows the level of sadism that was involved in many of the lynchings.
- Will James, Cairo, 1909: Graphically demonstrates the circus-like style of many of the lynchings. I think very few Americans realize that such a thing ever existed.
- Michael Donald, 1981: Shows that lynching is not only a thing of the distant past, and was very important historically for its impact on the KKK.
- Duluth, 1920: Shows that lynching wasn't just a phenomenon of the southeastern U.S.
- --Bcrowell 03:28, 22 Jun 2005 (UTC)
- This is a big, important subject in U.S. history, and I think the text should be expanded, which would also have the effect of reducing the image-heaviness. Here's what I feel is the relevance of the individual images:
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- It occurred to me that I should mention one more thing. In the talk page on the closely related KKK article, there has been some discussion about whether the Klan is a terrorist organization, whether there is a good side to the Klan, and whether the Klan has been, at all times and in all its many incarnations, a violent organization. Although six images of lynchings in this article may seem like a lot, I think many people have a hard time accepting that this was a commonplace part of how America worked for a long time, and that it wasn't just restricted to the southeast during the 19th century.--Bcrowell 03:43, 22 Jun 2005 (UTC)
- Quite the fervent defense there! I don't disagree with your reasoning, I just don't think that Wikipedia is that great a place for displaying images and they should be there to illustrate the article. In this case the article is very rough around the edges...
- the text should be expanded Well, yeah, that's what I was doing when you waltzed in. ;-) Seriously, I'm quite glad for the help! I had only barely done some needed reorganization (I haven't touched the terribly uneven "international" sections) and my hope was to give a broader context. For one thing I felt the entry gave very short shrift to the idea that there was a whole continuum of lynching which included African-American victims. To be perfectly honest, I'm wary of letting the article slip back into a similar POV state, which is something that could be encouraged by the shock value of a lot of images. I hope you don't take this the wrong way, as I don't have any strong counter-argument for any individual image you've added.
- Since I don't want this to get at all testy, the better approach might be to resize some of the images so that they don't take over visually and fit better into the text at typical browser reading sizes. I'm thinking that my monitor and resolution are above average, so I really wonder what my mom would see in IE on her small screen! --Dhartung | Talk 04:05, 22 Jun 2005 (UTC)
- Note: I moved part of this discussion to the "Images" section instead
- One tangential note: I was really struck, looking at the KKK image in full size, how much they looked like gangbangers. It could almost be the cover of a rap album -- all the more so because people today have forgotten any other KKK outfit but the white robe.--Dhartung | Talk 04:10, 22 Jun 2005 (UTC)
- I think we're on the same wavelength here. I realize that this is the type of hot-button article where conflict between editors could easily occur, but I think we can work together here.
- Reducing the size of some of the images would be fine, but I'd like to point out that the Cairo one might be hard to understand if it was reduced.
- I think you're right that the article could do a better job of representing the fact that not all lynching victims were black. The Cairo lynching, for example, was actually a double lynching of two unrelated people, one black and one white. One good thing about the image of the Leo Frank newspaper article is that it shows that lynching wasn't just directed at black people. It would be interesting to know if there are any reliable statistics on the percentage of lynching victims who were black.
- Yes, the organization of the article is very awkward. What would you think of spinning off the part about lynchings in the U.S. into a separate article?
- I'd like to make two points about how NPOV relates to the images: (1) the postcard images were intended as propaganda in favor of lynching, so their inclusion in the article could be interpreted as representing the pro-lynching POV; (2) I've tried to provide enough context to allow the reader to understand the lynching images thoroughly, even when this meant going into the (possibly bogus) accusations against the people who were lynched.--Bcrowell 04:33, 22 Jun 2005 (UTC)
- It occurred to me that I should mention one more thing. In the talk page on the closely related KKK article, there has been some discussion about whether the Klan is a terrorist organization, whether there is a good side to the Klan, and whether the Klan has been, at all times and in all its many incarnations, a violent organization. Although six images of lynchings in this article may seem like a lot, I think many people have a hard time accepting that this was a commonplace part of how America worked for a long time, and that it wasn't just restricted to the southeast during the 19th century.--Bcrowell 03:43, 22 Jun 2005 (UTC)
[edit] Michael Donald lynching image
I've added a photo of the 1981 Michael Donald lynching. I believe it falls within Wikipedia's guidelines for fair use, and I think it's necessary to the article, because if the article is weighted heavily toward pre-1922 images, and never shows anything within the last 50 years, people will get the comfortable feeling that lynching is a thing of the past. The Michael Donald lynching was also extremely historically important, because of the large civil judgment, which had the effect of bankrupting one of the large national Ku Klux Klan organizations, and furthering the decentralization of the Klan.--Bcrowell 20:48, 21 Jun 2005 (UTC)
[edit] Scope of the Article
[edit] Splitting article
Dhartung and I discussed above the fact that the current organization of this page is awkward, and I suggested spinning off the discussion of lynching in the U.S. into a separate article. Nobody else has commented pro or con, so I'm going to go ahead and do it.--Bcrowell 15:27, 23 Jun 2005 (UTC)
- Good move. Needs maintenance in the long term, tho: i removed
- The term "lynching" is believed to come from Charles Lynch, whose vigilance committee, an irregular court, tried and punished petty criminals and supporters of the British during the U.S. Revolutionary War.
- The term has also been referenced as being derived from William Lynch giver of the William Lynch Speech: The Making of a Slave--A speech by the British-born, Carribean plantation owner that visited Virginia to describe how best to "break" and control slaves. The controversial speech has been cited numerous times by Louis Farrakhan et al.
to Talk:Lynching in the United States (where etymology is under discussion) bcz it is too much detail for this page, let alone for the lead 'graph.
--Jerzy•t 23:18, 12 October 2005 (UTC)
[edit] Article Title
I question the value of Lynching as a title to cover primarily non-US events:
- The term is of American origin, and i've not yet seen evidence that it is widely applied to other places, other by Americans as an analogy, when searching for a usable word.
- While the characteristics of American lynching could theoretically develop elsewhere, this article shows no evidence of it:
- _ _ The US examples cited here are all about one thing(and i presume those in the long Lynching in the United States article are predominantly about it): a well-established pattern of illegal violence by people of a politically dominant group, tolerated (for reasons at various points along a scale stretching from the political cost of doing otherwise, to whole-hearted endorsement of the pattern), in an otherwise highly pluralistic and legalistic society.
- _ _ The Iraq example, that i moved to talk, has the context of military occupation and incipient civil war, and is too vague (about the logic both of labelling it "lynching" and of restricting it to one instance) to guess what its author is really aiming at.
- _ _ The rest fall into two categories, both markedly different from the US ones, tho they resemble each other in involving either
- attacks by (at least relatively) disenfranchised people or
- at least two properties among these three: aborted mob violence, absence of a pattern of highly similar lynchings, and practical inability of authorities to interfere.
- Further, the Palestinian-involved and South African ones are, in contrast to US lynching, part of multi-generation-long patterns of ongoing military, police, and guerrilla violence.
- There has been no apparent effort to distinguish among these three categories:
- spontaneous mob violence colored by indignation,
- (1) against its specific victims or
- (2) against those with merely remote perceived connection to a perceived grievance;
- (3)organized illegal paramilitary operations.;
- spontaneous mob violence colored by indignation,
As to (1) thru (3), i don't mean to say one is lynching and another not, but rather: that lynching historically in the US may well reflect a progression from
- _ _ awareness of a history of frontier rough justice for clear violations of statute law and
- _ _ experience of occasional Civil War martial law,
- _ _ perhaps via urgent measures when taken Union troops seemed unsympathetic in the face of clear violations of statute law (the "Birth of a Nation" scenario),
- _ _ in any case to Klan-organized lynching parties treating fear as a primary goal and justice as at best a secondary one,
- _ _ in turn contributing to a sense of more spontaneous group violence being a low-risk option.
Again, my point isn't really to suggest that some of those stages are or aren't lynching. Rather, i am arguing against the view that lynching is just a term for a form of violence definable by an intent and acts and result -- the view that you assume when you try to write about "lynching" outside an American context; i'm suggesting that such criteria for defining what constitute a lynching are as impossible as defining what constitutes bushido on the part of an American, or Gemütlichkeit in Mobile, or southern hospitality in Augsburg. I think "lynching" is more like a name for a specific social and political phenomenon that occurred in the US, expressed primarily in the South and Border States but still part of the lynching phenomenon when it found expression in the North: nothing more or less than event that has a role in the history of American race relations, roughly along the lines of fitting into the true version of the progression i tried to describe. And if i am right, some arguements on this page are symptoms of ignoring that. Arguements about what constitutes illegality in the occupied territories (and the arguing that i await, based on claims that the occupation of Iraq is or isn't illegal) are ill-conceived ones invited by the misnaming of this article. None of the non-US examples are lynching, because lynching has too complex a history to be exportable. If it happens elsewhere, you might as well just look for another name for it.
--Jerzy•t 05:04, 13 October 2005 (UTC)
- I agree. The article would be better if it was only about US 'lynching' as that is what the word is used for 90% of the time. Covering all 'extra-judicial killings' would make the article very long and raise questions about what constitutes 'extra-judicial'. The non US sections seem to mostly be sensationalist reports of individual killings, rather than a description of the practice as a whole. It would be better to provide links along the lines of Extra judicial killings - South Africa
- And like User:Jmabel has noted, the killings during the Reign of Terror as not very similar to Deep South lynchings and don't really belong in the same article. Ashmoo 07:15, 17 October 2006 (UTC)
[edit] Lynching in Israel
note that in the example given for lynching in Israel, from Feb. 1996, the claim that the Arab driver ran over Israelis accidentally was later turned over by investigation, and the event was reclassified as a terrorist attack.
[edit] Image caption
A writer to info-en@wikimedia.org states that the photo cannot have been taken in Center, Texas based on the the fact that the writer remembers no building ever being in that town with an appearance similar to the one depicted. The facts of the matter were that while the murder Lige Daniels was accused of occured in Center, Texas, Daniels was taken to a jail in Nacogdoches, Texas to be held for trial. The lynching may have taken place there; the writer to info-en was unsure. I bring this matter to the attention of editors already involved in this article so that it may be properly addressed. The Uninvited Co., Inc. 17:33, 24 March 2006 (UTC)
[edit] Reign of Terror
From the article:
Lynch law is sometimes justified by its supporters as the administration of justice (in a social-moral sense, not in law) without the delays and inefficencies inherent to the legal system; in this way it echoes the Reign of Terror during the French Revolution, which was justified by the claim "Terror is nothing more than Justice, swift and certain."
I think there is a serious misunderstanding here. While the Reign of Terror was brutal, it is a very in-apt comparison here, no more appropriate to invoke than Nazi death camps or the Holodomor. In no small measure, the laws that initiated the Reign of Terror were passed precisely to head off lynching: the people of Paris demanded harsher justice, and the formal Terror was intended to prevent a recurrence of something like the September Massacres. The (unattributed) quotation here from Robespierre may have had a bit of special pleading and/or demagogy to it, and the Revolutionary Tribunals of the French Revolutionary era may have been kangaroo courts, but they had the trappings of legality, and (again) were initiated partly in the hope of preserving some trace of legalism and at least allowing the government rather than the mob to choose who would die.
Interestingly, after writing this, and while trying to find some relevant references, I found that Britannica makes exactly the same distinction I just made, specifically contrasting the Reign of Terror to lynching.
So, can we get this out of there? - Jmabel | Talk 02:20, 29 July 2006 (UTC)
[edit] List of Lynchings in America
By even the lowest estimates, there were thousands of racially motivated lynchings in the United States. So why do we have a section here that lists 11 of them? - Jmabel | Talk 00:22, 25 November 2006 (UTC)
[edit] My oh My
Guess it goes to show that Wikipedia comments as much upon its editors as the edits they themselves make! In this case, that American editors are completely ignorant of the actual origin of the term, "to lynch" - as they are of the broader world in general. I find it ridiculous to the extent that I can't be bothered to edit the article - 'Lynch Law' finds its name in the Lord Mayor of Galway City, in Ireland, who, in the 16th century, hanged his own son for murder rather than give him pardon. It came to symbolise harsh law outside the courts. His name happened to be?...and it wasn't Murphy. God bless you people, really. Documented, attested, sustained...has nothing to do with 'the for sailor' or that nonsense about the English for 'hill'. Lynch Law is as I said.Iamlondon 05:41, 19 December 2006 (UTC)
[edit] Lynching in America was not just hanging
it often included mutilation, and the body parts such as fingers and ears were given out to the spectators. web de bois saw the knuckles of one lynched man in a store in georgia which inspired him to be a civil rights activist.
that info (in some other form) should be included.