`` Exquisite Corpse `` By Ashraf Rushdy

Lynching is called the last great skeleton in our nation's closet: It terrorized all of black America, claimed thousands upon thousands of victims in the decades between the 1880s and the Second World War, and leaves invisible but horrifying scars to this day. In the book, “At The Hands Of Persons Unknown”, by Philip Dray demonstrates that throughout America, not just in the South, blacks were accused of any crime or even just violating social or racial customs. The blacks everywhere were hunted by mobs, abducted from jails, and men and women were shot, hanged, tortured, and burned, often in sadistic, picnic-like "spectacle lynchings" involving thousands of witnesses that enjoyed watching.

“From that point on,” after witnessing the body—and Mamie’s courage—“Mississippi began to move” (Bush 3). On July 2nd 1964, John F. Kennedy signed the civil rights act into law. Now, This was meant to be a turning point in history and the act of gunning down a black youth became a staple case of racism considering it was the case that led to the enactment of the Civil Rights Act. However, within the emergence of this new racism, “African American males between the ages of 15 and 34 comprised more than 15% of all deaths logged in 2015 by investigation into the use of deadly force by police” (Swaine 1) even though African American males only make up 2% of the population. From Emmett Till’s gunning down in 1955 to Walter Scott’s in 2015, we are witnessing history repeat itself when America can clearly see, “of course the evidence is not there, but we are still claiming skin color was not a factor” (Crump 2). The city of North Charleston, S.C., was all too willing to accept the officer’s version of events, even though the physical evidence clearly showed that the officer had landed four out of eight bullets in Scott’s

First, ask yourself how would you feel after hearing the news that one of your family members had been lynched? Throughout the chapters 1-8, we can experience and observe the disheartening history of violence and lies. It is additionally an irritating depiction of a partitioned country on the very edge of the social equality development and an eerie contemplation on race, history, and the battle for truth. Throughout history, the conditions of the lynching, how it affected the legislators of the day, quickened the social equality development and keeps on shadowing the Georgia people group where these homicides occurred. During the 1900s until 19600s various African-Americans experienced various harsh conditions of violence, never being granted the right to vote and being segregated from whites based on their race and skin-color from their white masters. In general racism between whites and blacks can be seen throughout the globe during the era of slavery

The article “Regarding the Aftermaths of Lynching” is one written by Kidada E. WIlliams, that helps explain why it is important to be interested in what happens after an individual is lynched. This is indeed Williams’ argument, which is later elaborated more on in the article. Her argument is arguable due to the fact that, even though Kidada believes that lynching should be researched, every scholar does not. Williams has stated that lynching is wrong and immoral, but there are obviously individuals that do not agree.

During the late Nineteenth Century, The Free Speech was one of the only journals in the country that spoke directly to African-Americans. As an author for this journal, Wells-Barnett sought to enlighten the public with information that was rarely published in other newspapers. In the event that knowledge of these lynchings were made public, they rarely contained accurate information. This journal was without a doubt a nuisance to the southern white press, who sought to discredit African-Americans in order to keep them out of political matters. The Free Speech went too far in a publication written for the May 21st, 1892 paper. The article describes the lynching of eight men since the previous publication. The deaths and crimes are described and doubt is expressed that most of the individuals were actually guilty. The spark that led to Wells-Barnett’s attempted lynching is found at the end of the article. “Nobody in this section of the country believes the old thread-bare lie that Negro men rape white women. If Southern white men are not careful, they will overreach themselves and public sentiment will have a reaction, a conclusion will then be reached which will be very damaging to the moral reputation of their women.” With the publishing of this article, local whites became enraged and took this as a direct threat to their “authority” over African-Americans. Local newspapers such as The Daily Commercial wrote follow up articles testifying to the

One of the most recent national conflicts deals with the shooting and killing of Michael Brown (a black man) by a white police officer ("Holder Announces Ferguson Probe, Review of St. Louis County Police Practices."). Sense Perception and Emotion should be considered when evaluating this situation at Ferguson. The sense perception of the witnesses as well as that of the two involved in the physical conflict needs to be taken into consideration. The police officer could have believed he was defended himself, and Brown could have thought the same. The witnesses and the surrounding population’s opinions should also be considered. St. Louis County is notorious for their crime rate and their protest/ riot like movements. These riots can probably be credited for getting this situation national attention because of the actions and the

Recently, an L.A. Times article (dated 2/13/00) reviewed a new book entitled "Without Sanctuary", a collection of photographs from lynchings throughout America. During the course of the article, the author, Benjamin Schwarz, outlined some very interesting and disturbing facts related to this gruesome act of violence: Between 1882 and 1930, more than 3,000 people were lynched in the U.S., with approximately 80% of them taking place in the South. Though most people think only African Americans were victims of lynchings, during those years, about 25% were white. Data indicates that mobs in the West lynched 447 whites and 38 blacks; in the Midwest there were 181 white victims and 79 black; and in the South, people lynched 291

In the case of lynching, discourses emerge from heated debates about the meaning of the practice; these debates change over the long history of lynching in America. At different times in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, the term “lynching” has implied rather different historical acts amongst the community. It has also been used to specify acts that indicated a wide range of distinct motives, strategies, technologies and meanings, as well as a politically encumbered term. For many African Americans who grew up in the South in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, the threat of lynching was mundane. Photographs and postcards illustrating the popular image of an angry white mob hanging a black man does not give the full historic

A young man’s brutal death at the hands of the police is found justified in a court of law due to his “suspicious” appearance: a black hoodie and his hands in his pocket. An elderly woman is fatally shot in her home for her relation to a suspected criminal. A married man with two toddlers is choked to death after a minor traffic stop by an officer who later claimed that his unarmed victim was wielding a gun. These people all have a few commonalities: the color of their skin, their presumed guilt at first sight, and their ultimate unjustified death administered by the law force. These are not uncommon occurrences. Due to the staggeringly disproportionate rate of African-Americans killed by the police, and the underlying rampant racial profiling, police brutality towards blacks in America must be called to light.

However insignificant the number of lynching against whites, the significance, as Brundage suggests, lies, “…not in their tiny number, but rather in the way in which they both exposed and molded whites’ attitudes toward mob violence.” (101) While the number of whites compared to blacks lynched was severely uneven it shows that race did not deter a mob from lynching. At this point in time it would be seen that the cause of mob violence from race relations to generalizations about court laws and the white mobs feeling their lack of

On August 9th, 2014, Michael Brown, an innocent young black teenager was murdered in Ferguson, Missouri by Darren Wilson, a white police officer. Since the dashboard cameras are not installed in Ferguson police cars, the clear evidence of what happened is still unclear. But based on the testament of Brown’s friend Johnson who was walking with Brown, they were ordered to move off the street onto sidewalks by Wilson driving a police car, and there were struggles between Michael and Wilson through the car window. Then Michael, without carrying any weapon, was shot six times by Wilson to death, even after Michael had raised his

They then become the symbol of all that is wrong with societies interactions with law enforcement. The African American communities believe they have been unjustly and unfairly targeted by the police and are be systematically executed, thus justifying the civil unrest and rioting. When then President Obama became involved in the death of Michael Brown in Ferguson, as well as the Justice Department’s involvement in many other cases, some sense of credibility was added to the thought process of being treated as second-class citizens or one of the proletariats as Marx

He proceeds to explain how because of this the possibility of Officer Encinia ( officer involved with the case) being a racist or having the mindset of a KKK member is higher than if from a place with little to no history with racism. “The history is especially painful because Waller County was for a time a beacon of black progress (Long History of Racism). The intended audience are the people who haven’t decided whether they support Sandra Bland or Officer Encinia. An inexperienced audience would analyze the reading as If the article is either good or bad instead of credible or not credible. “But the last two decades of the century saw an influx of white immigrants from Eastern Europe, and that dilution of the black vote, along with the end of Reconstruction, reduced blacks to a minority and slashed their political power.” (Long History of Racism). What makes this article not credible is the amount of bias used to persuade the reader. “Last June, a black clergyman alleged that Mathis has threatened him over such accusations.” (Long History of Racism) The authors language and how he explains the case is what causes this article to be not credible and how the author doesn’t stay neutral to explain both sides of the case. “Waller County, as Leah Binkovitz notes, had among the highest numbers of lynchings in the state between 1877 and 1950, according to a comprehensive report by the Equal Justice Initiative.” ( bandwagon). The fallacy that the author uses causes the reader to see the worst in the law enforcement as well as having a negative effect on society because it causes people to see the worst in police officers, and because of this the article is very effective in getting a non- critical reader to be easily persuaded, the critical reader should

Lynching was way of life in the United States at the beginning of the twentieth century. As Wells-Barnett points out, although most white people try to say that they did not want to discuss the noisy, because it will drag the reputation of angry white women, the vast majority of lynching had been completed, white people thought like lynching or burning some black people just to teach them their place. Wells intends to dissolve these myths and reasons into lynching, especially black rape white women. She repeats and the objectivity of the news proves that most black corpses killed black citizens are innocent and that their murders are not punished.

This demonstrates the government’s role in initiating and prolonging racial suppression and provides the explanation for police brutality to become a federal crime(Black Radical Congress, 3). In history, racist violence, police brutality, has been used to suppress the racial blacks and to preserve power and privileges for the white race. This was done for five primary purposes. First, it has forced black people into slavery or low wage situations. Secondly, to steal land and other resources. A 3-rd was to maintain social control. A fourth purpose was to eliminate conflict in politics, social life, and employment. Lastly, the fifth purpose was to unite white people across the ethnic, class, and gender boundaries. However, after the Emancipation, lynching became a prominent form of violence used against the blacks. The use of lynching was a means of controlling and putting fear into the blacks, making them afraid to go against anything the