| palmela |
 Wysłany: Sob 14:06, 16 Lut 2008 Temat postu: |
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http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lynching
| Cytat: | Lynching, as a form of punishment for presumed criminal offenses, performed by self-appointed commissions, mobs, or vigilantes without due process of law took place in the United States even before the American Civil War and after all over the nation from southern states to western frontier settlements. The term 'lynching' is said to have originated during the American Revolution when Charles Lynch, a Virginia justice of the peace, ordered extralegal punishment for Tory acts. In the South, members of the abolitionist movement or other people opposing slavery were usually targets of lynch mob violence before the Civil War. After the war, lynching was a method of terrorism used to intimidate freed blacks who were voting and assuming political power.
A study of vigilante justice during the period of 1868 to 1871 estimates that the Ku Klux Klan was involved in more than 400 lynchings.
Blacks were lynched often because they were accused of crimes committed against whites, however, journalist Ida B. Wells showed in her investigations that many presumed crimes were exaggerated or didn't occur at all.
Mob violence became a tool for enforcing white supremacy and verged on systematic political terrorism. "The Ku Klux Klan, paramilitary groups, and other whites united by frustration and anger ruthlessly defended the interests of the Democratic Party, the avowed party of white supremacy. The magnitude of extralegal violence during election campaigns reached epidemic proportions, leading the historian William Gillette to label it guerilla warfare'
During Reconstruction, the Ku Klux Klan and others used lynching as a means to control African Americans, force them to work for planters, and prevent them from voting. White Republicans were often victims of lynching as well in the post-war period. Federal troops operating under the Civil Rights Act of 1871 largely broke up the Reconstruction-era Klan. By the end of Reconstruction in 1877, white southerners regained nearly total control of the region's governments and courts. In the late 19th century, Southern legislatures acted through constitutional changes and laws to effectively disfranchise African Americans through devices such as poll taxes or property requirements, and literacy and interpretation tests in which a registrar would judge a candidate's fitness.
Lynchings declined briefly, but the practice took hold again with a vengeance by the end of the 19th century. Tuskeegee Institute records of lynchings between the years 1880 and 1951 show 3437 African-American victims, as well as 1293 white victims, nearly all of whom were registered Republicans. The largest single lynching incident in America's history was the murder of 280 African Americans in Colfax, Louisiana in 1873 known as The Colfax Massacre.
The number of lynchings peaked at the end of the 19th century, but these kinds of murders continued into the twentieth century. African Americans resisted through protests, marches, writing of articles, rebuttals of so-called justifications of lynching, organizing women's groups against lynching, and organizing integrated groups against lynching. In addition African American playwrights produced fourteen anti-lynching plays from 1916-1935, ten of them by women. The frequency of lynching dropped in the 1930s. Most but not all lynchings ceased during the 1960s, but there were some dramatic cases of civil rights workers lynched in Mississippi.
After the 1915 release of the movie The Birth of a Nation, which glorified lynching and the Reconstruction-era Klan, the Klan re-formed and re-adopted lynching as a means to socially, economically, and politically terrorize and paralyze black populations. Victims were usually black men, and sometimes black women, often accused of assaulting or raping whites. Lynch Law declined sharply by the 1950s.
This memorial to the 1920 Duluth lynchings was described by its artist as attempting to "reinvest [the victims] with their unique personalities", to counteract the way the lynchings "depersonalized" them.In The Strange Career of Jim Crow, the historian C. Vann Woodward wrote of the post- World War I period:
"The war-bred hopes of the Negro for first-class citizenship were quickly smashed in a reaction of violence that was probably unprecedented. Some twenty-five race riots were touched off in American cities during the first six months of 1919, months that John Hope Franklin called 'the greatest period of interracial strife the nation had ever witnessed.' Mobs took over cities for days at a time, flogging, burning, shooting, and torturing at will. When the Negroes showed a new disposition to fight and defend themselves, violence increased. Some of these atrocities occurred in the South—at Longview, Texas, for example, or at Tulsa, Oklahoma, at Elaine, Arkansas or Knoxville, Tennessee. But they were limited to no one section of the country. Many of them occurred in the North and the worst of all was in Chicago. During the first year following the war more than seventy Negroes were lynched, several of them veterans still in uniform."
The executions of 4,743 people who were lynched in the United States between 1882 and 1968 were not often publicized. It is likely that many more unrecorded lynchings occurred in this period. Lynching statistics were kept only for the 86 years between 1882 and 1968, and were based primarily on newspaper accounts. Yet the socio-political impact of lynchings could be significant. In 1901 the state of Colorado restored capital punishment, in response to an outbreak of lynchings in 1900. The state had abolished capital punishment only in 1897.
Most lynchings were inspired by unsolved crime, racism, and innuendo. 3,500 of its victims were African Americans. Lynchings took place in every state except four, but were concentrated in the Cotton Belt (Mississippi, Georgia, Alabama, Texas and Louisiana).
Members of mobs that participated in these public murders often took photographs of what they had done. Those photographs, distributed on postcards, were collected by James Allen, who has published them in book form and online, with written words and video to accompany the images.
Retaining incriminating evidence is not uncommon for sadistic criminals and in a study conducted by Robert R. Hazelwood, M.S. it was reported that of the sadistic criminals studied: "Forty percent of the men took and kept personal items belonging to their victims... which included... photographs... and some of the offenders referred to them as "trophies"."
Civil rights and the color of law
The Fourth Amendment of the United States Constitution guarantees persons the right against unreasonable searches or seizures. Under the "color of law", a law enforcement official under certain circumstances is allowed to stop people and search them and retain their property if necessary. Abuse of this discretionary power is a violation of a person's civil rights. Unlawful detention or illegal confiscation of property are examples of such abuse. In deprivation of property, the color of law statute is violated by unlawfully obtaining or maintaining the property of another person. Fabricating evidence or conducting false arrest is a violation of a person's rights of unreasonable seizure and due process. The Fourteenth Amendment of the U.S. Constitution secures the right to due process. The Eighth Amendment prohibits the use of cruel and unusual punishment. These rights prohibit the use of force in an arrest or detention context which would amount to punishment or summary judgment and provide that a person accused of a crime is not subject to punishment without legal process and a trial.[23] Title 18, U.S.C., Section 241 is the civil rights conspiracy statute which makes it unlawful for two or more persons to conspire to injure, oppress, threaten, or intimidate any person of any state, territory or district in the free exercise or enjoyment of any right or privilege secured to him/her by the Constitution or the laws of the United States, (or because of his/her having exercised the same) and further makes it unlawful for two or more persons to go in disguise on the highway or premises of another person with intent to prevent or hinder his or her free exercise or enjoyment of such rights. Depending upon the circumstances of the crime, and any resulting injury, the offense is punishable by a range of fines and/or imprisonment for any term of years up to life, or the death penalty.
Europe
In Europe early examples of a similar phenomenon are found in the proceedings of the Vehmgerichte in medieval Germany, and of Lydford law, gibbet law or Halifax law in England and Cowper justice and Jeddart justice in Scotland.
In 1944, Wolfgang Rosterg, a German prisoner of war known to be unsympathetic to the Nazi regime in Germany, was lynched by Nazi fanatics in POW Camp 21 in Comrie, Scotland. After the end of the war, five of the perpetrators were hanged at Pentonville Prison - the largest multiple execution in 20th century Britain.
There are also some personal accounts of lynching in Budapest, Hungary, during the 1956 Hungarian Revolution against the occupying Soviets.
Pogroms against Jews in the early twentieth century in Russia and south-eastern Europe were another form of community policing, similar to the ethnic cleansing that characterized lynchings in the United States. (See Pogrom and .)
Mexico
On November 23, 2004, in the Tlahuac lynching, three Mexican undercover federal agents doing a narcotics investigation were lynched in the town of San Juan Ixtayopan (Mexico City) by an angry crowd who saw them taking photographs and mistakenly suspected they were trying to abduct children from a primary school. The policemen identified themselves immediately but were held and beaten for several hours before two of them were killed and set on fire.
The whole incident was covered by the media almost from the beginning, including their pleas for help and their murder.
By the time police rescue units arrived, two of the policemen were reduced to charred corpses and the third was seriously injured. Authorities suspect the lynching was provoked by the persons being investigated.
Both local and federal authorities abandoned them to their fate, saying the town was too far away to even try to arrive in time and some officials stating they would provoke a massacre if they tried to rescue them from the mob.
Dominican Republic
Anti-black and anti-Haitian bias has long been a part of Dominican identity and culture. According to an Amnesty International report, lynchings of Haitians and black Dominicans have continued to occur as late as 2006.
South Africa
The practice of whipping and necklacing offenders and political opponents evolved in the 1980s during the apartheid era in South Africa. Residents of black townships lost confidence in the apartheid judicial system and formed "people's courts" that authorized whip lashings and deaths by necklacing. Necklacing is a term used to describe the torture and execution of victims by igniting a rubber, kerosene-filled, tire that has been forced around the victim's chest and arms. Necklacing was used to punish numerous victims, including children, who were alleged to be traitors to the black liberation movement as well as relatives and associates of the offenders. Of course sometimes the "people's courts" made mistakes, or used the system to punish those to whom leaders were opposed. There was tremendous controversy when the practice was endorsed by Winnie Mandela, wife of the imprisoned Nelson Mandela and a senior member of the African National Congress.
India
Main article: caste-related violence in India
In India, lynchings generally reflect tensions between numerous ethnic groups and castes in the country. Typically, lynchings involve upper-caste members attacking lower caste members. However, recent examples include the Kherlanji massacre, where low castes were lynched by other low castes. India has a large scale affirmative action programme for the emancipation of the lower castes.A United Nations committee equated violence against low-caste Hindus with racial discrimination and has questioned India’s record on treatment of the socially marginalized.[29].However, sociologists and social scientists reject the identification of caste with racial discrimination and attribute it to intra-racial ethno-cultural conflict.
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| palmela |
| Wysłany: Czw 21:27, 06 Gru 2007 Temat postu: black kkk |
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Publication:New York Sun; Date:Dec 6, 2007; Section:Editorial & Opinion; Page Number:9
Stop the Black KKK
JOHN MCWHORTER
Jason Whitlock has written this year’s best column on race.
He’s a black sports columnist at FOXSports.com, and he is disgusted with much of the black punditocracy’s response to the murder of Redskins football player Sean Taylor. Some are claiming that 2 was a target because he was an athlete. Others insist that it is wrong and even racist to bring up that Taylor had spent a lot of time on the wrong side of the law.
But the tacit assumption would appear to be that the staggeringly high murder rate among young black men these days is just the way it is. Mr. Whitlock calls these murders the Black KKK.
Oh sure, if it’s brought up people shake their heads. And certainly there are “Stop the Violence” forums and such.
But very few are as truly, lastingly aroused by issues such as these, which involve the black community looking inward, as they are by nooses hung from a tree, someone saying a bad word, or the latest study showing that racism still persists in one way or another in “institutional” guise. No one takes to the streets about the Black KKK, and academics find it much less interesting than, say, a study that some employers reject job applications with black-sounding names.
Friedrich von Hayek once noted, “It seems to be almost a law of human nature that it is easier for people to agree on a negative program — on the hatred of an enemy, on the envy of those better off —than on any positive task.” That’s Black America’s problem right now.
Mr. Whitlock seeks “the outrage and courage it took in the 1950s and 1960s to stop the white KKK from hanging black men from trees.” Instead, “we take great joy in prescribing medicine to cure the hate in other people’s hearts. Meanwhile,
our self-hatred, on full display for the world to see, remains untreated, undiagnosed and unrepentant.”
The question Mr. Whitlock leaves, however, is precisely what we are to do about our internal cultural problems. Everybody knows how to protest. And sometimes a protest is necessary. But obviously, protest alone isn’t working. How do you actually build something?
For one thing, get a copy of Bill Cosby and Alvin Poussaint’s new book, “Come On People” and read it cover to cover, because it is all about precisely what needs to be done and how to do it. If Mr. Whitlock has written the best race column of the year, Messrs. Cosby and Pousssaint have written the best book.
All black people should read it. The audiobook should be played in barbershops. Maybe somebody needs to set it to some “phat” beats so people can dance to it.
Read of how Joyce Riley’s 24th Street Non-Violent Marchers actually got the thugs out of her Kansas City neighborhood. Read about how to get a degree and a job even if you’re not on your way to college — step by step. And to top it all off, “Come On People” is a great read.
No, Tavis Smiley’s book “The Covenant with Black America” from last year was not the same thing. Reading it you’d barely know the Black KKK existed, and the theme is reform of the system, when the solutions that help people almost always involve working within it. Or, instead of waiting for that great day when all inner city kids are taught by awesome teachers in glimmering buildings, focus on something that can happen in the real world. Become active on your local school board, and simply insist that students are taught to read with phonics-based programs. It’s how poor kids learn to read, period. So much starts from there.
Another one: If you’re going to vote for a Democratic presidential candidate, vote for the one most interested in things that will help black people to help themselves.
Upon which, note that this person is not Hillary Clinton. The fact that it is even possible that the black electorate will elevate Mrs. Clinton over Barack Obama because of her mere familiarity, or residual affection for her “black president” husband, is frankly a little embarrassing.
Those who say they don’t “know” Mr. Obama need to get to know him, now. And if Mr. Obama is “not black enough,” I would think that his commitment to reconnecting ex-con dads with their kids, not to mention his days doing community work, would qualify him as, at least, brown.
Mr. Whitlock’s point about self-hatred is also key. Currently, in large swathes of the black community, an able-bodied young man who doesn’t hold down a 40-hour-a-week job is considered normal even when he has kids. We must get to the point that men like that are considered as socially unacceptable as they are in a Scarsdale living room — as they were even in black slums until the 1970s.
I vary from day to day as to how likely I see it that one day black America will be as committed to helping itself as, say, Israel’s first residents were to reviving Hebrew. There is no telling how far we could go if only most of us found reading instruction programs as interesting as nooses.
Mr. McWhorter is a senior fellow at the Manhattan Institute.
http://daily.nysun.com/Repository/ml.asp?Ref=TllTLzIwMDcvMTIvMDYjQXIwMDkwMg==&Mode=HTML&Locale=english-skin-custom |
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