Defining Lynching Up. And White. And Rich.
Oh, sure, as Paul as already noted today the American Spectator published a reprehensible article as part of the Sharrod smear campaign advancing the ludicrous claim that lynching isn’t lynching on its front page. However, in fairness it must be said that this publication has not always employed such a narrow definition. Indeed, as Steve and TS note, when powerful white Republican political figures are involved, the definition of “lynching” can be broadened to include “mild criticism.”
I remain puzzled that the Republican Party has not made inroads among African-American voters.
One thing that none of the commenters over there mentioned is the first thing that came to my mind, the matter of the “high-tech lynching” from the Clarence Thomas hearings. I checked the ASand found that Lord, in his comments section, wasn’t wild about the use of the phrase “uppity nigger,” reminding his readership that it was Thomas himself who used that wording. Lord didn’t seem to have any problem with the “lynching” part.
Sorry: scroll to 5-5-09 @ 1:28 pm fer the dee-tails.
As to white, the world is blessed with our greatness, as to rich the richness of life is graced with one’s honor and integrity and efforts to color the world with chivalry. As for lynching, stop being melodramatic, I come from a family well gifted militarially in drawing and quartering and I did this all the time as a child, what part of any greater strength and skill in athletics and martial arts don’t you get, of course the ARYAN people are the master race, as a female I bear the key and am phenomonally strong, of course the uppity crowd doesn’t like it because they can’t succeed and will never proceed, but don’t get caught up on one way to keep an enemy in place and down , get good at it and they’ll never get up, mine have yet to talk out to me, I’d backslap them down so hard they’d fall and die! Sign me head BIOCHE! HEKELA G.
That was illuminating.
What drugs am I supposed to take for this to make sense?
If White is your ideal, why is your name Green?
It’s not easy being Green!
Some one help me. I can never tell if I’m supposed to laugh at these things, or if I simply don’t understand.
Unfunny parody, is my take. So you were supposed to laugh but it is cool that you didn’t.
Mountain Dew’s a hell of a drug.
I remain puzzled that the Republican Party has not made inroads among African-American voters.
I’m amazed too. Especially when I hear the usual Republican response to their lack of black support: “Well, they’re all just on the Democrat plantation”. Yuck, yuck.
It is equally amazing that Latino support for the Republican Party has fallen to about 20%. Wonder what “plantation” they’re on?
When Reagan was elected the electorate was 86% white. When Obama won, the electorate was 68% white. Demographics bitches, they’re a killer and the wingers are some kind of stupid.
Now let’s just hope our Democratic president doesn’t do something idiotic like send National Guard troops to Arizona to patrol the border.
I thought the arguments advanced in the links were specious. They are conflating figurative and literal stances. I am VERY certain that every author who used “lynched” on those articles would have freely admitted that they were speaking figuratively. Sharrod was speaking of a literal lynching. (Ironically, the TS link points to an article that uses “lynching” figuratively but also uses “hanging” in the subtitle, as does one of the ones Steve links.)
Please don’t misunderstand me, I agree Jonathan Lord is a dumbass and I am certain that a lynching occurred in this case.
I am just saying that acting like there is a “gotcha!” moment is just a bit confused. Even though we’re all excited to get in the face of Lord, there is still a difference between the map and the territory.
Oops I meant Jeffrey Lord.
Well, sure, but it makes a whole article based around ignorant hair-splitting about an actual lynching even more ridiculous.
Steve found this less palatable than you did.
(See comments on his thread.)
I really don’t get this. Was the word “beat” used correctly? What about the blackjack, was it really a pipe? Were “cops” involved or were the policemen? I wonder if Hall was really handcuffed or were his hands tied.
I know it is wrong to wish harm upon another person but I almost wish that a man the looks like Willie Horton would gently tap Lord awake in the middle of the night with a blackjack (if that is the right term) and then in a gentle voice explain the meaning and etymologically roots of the work lynch. Perhaps that would give him a more visceral understanding of the situation. I mean WTF. Where the hell is Noon when you need him?
I like your analysis of figuative and literal usage, but Lord was still wrong. And your reading of the comments (including some of mine) is incorrect. Lord was trying to pretend that Sherrod’s allegedly non-literal usage rose to the level of a “lie” (literally incorrect) or “inflammatory” (figuratively excessive). It was the commenters who clarified what a lynching literally is, and pointed out that describing a literal lynching as a “lynching” is neither a lie, nor inflammatory. A figurative use of “lynch,” like Justice Thomas’s, is hard to characterize as a lie, but, as a term for describing a a Senate hearing, it can certainly be viewed as more inflammatory than anything Sherrod said, even accepting all of Lord’s arguments.
Bill – I was:
Appalled | 7.26.10 @ 10:07AM
But see, they pissed you off, so by their definition they won.
The same people who say that guns don’t kill people, people kill people have now come to the opposite conclusion, and have decided that racist mobs don’t lynch people, ropes lynch people.
To be honest, I’m slightly surprised that there’s no vocal pro-lynching movement yet. There is, after all, a vocal pro-torture movement. I suppose we should be relieved that Lord didn’t take the “he had it coming!” approach.
After all, lynching is surely the most authentic form of justice. No interference or second-guessing by city judges or elitist “lawyers” who think they know better than the ordinary local folks.
You clearly haven’t been reading some of the commentary written regarding the killing of Oscar Grant by BART cops in Oakland. There have been pieces that did not merely excuse it, but celebrated it.
It’s a bit like porn: if you can imagine it, someone’s supporting it.
Actually, I think if you look carefully at the various right-to-carry laws in a lot of states, combined with the same people advocating elimination of the duty to retreat from a confrontation, you’ll see that we do have a vocal pro-lynching movement.
It’s a bit like porn: if you can imagine it, someone’s supporting it.
It’s a sort of cross between Rule 34 and Poe’s Law. “There is no hypothetical position so horrific that you cannot find a right-winger online supporting it.”
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I find it slightly amusing that Hall was beaten by the law enforcement officers because he had the audacity to fight for his Second Amendment right! This is so ironic on so many levels you would think that heads would be exploding all over the tea party circuit. Had he been white, he would be a hero, a cause celebre for the NRA. There is no better illustration that racims trumps almost every other value.
One other thing that I think deserves to be stressed regarding the obnoxious Lord article is its contention that Sherrod lied (not “was mistaken”), but lied. In describing the brutal beating to death of her relative, she’s somehow an intentional deceiver by using a word that Lord thinks is incorrectly applied to such a killing. This is, to me, indicative of a very strange mindset all by itself: I can attack the people I disagree with as liars on the feeblest of evidence.
Aw, come on! There’s that one fella that they’re about to fire from the RNC, and
Alvin Greeneum, well, not Bobby Jindal and Nikki Haley so much, but they are brown, so doesn’t that count, a little? Say, three/fifths?