# Anti-lynching law now targets blacks **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [May 17, 2003, 10:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/anti-lynching-law-now-targets-blacks/175956 "2003-05-17T22:37:28Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 13\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![astro](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/9dc877/32.png) [@astro](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/astro)\ **Post date:** [May 17, 2003, 10:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/anti-lynching-law-now-targets-blacks/175956/1 "2003-05-17T22:37:28Z")
[Anti-lynching law now targets blacks - Definition of South Carolina statute applies to many attacks](http://msnbc.com/news/914895.asp?0cv=CB10) Somewhat odd turnabout for this law, but why are blacks wanting to end this law now that it is being used to target gang violence? Isn’t that bad for everyone? [sub] > [@](#): > > In all but two of the state’s 46 counties, blacks are charged with lynching out of proportion to their representation in the population. In Oconee County, for instance, blacks comprise 8 percent of the residents but 44 percent of those charged with lynching. Prosecutors and police argue there is no racial profiling behind the law’s application, noting that blacks are charged with other violent crimes more often than whites. But its the use of the word lynching that trips Marcharia and others. “Obviously, the law has outlived its purpose,” says J. Wayne Flynt, a professor of Southern history at Auburn University. “Its intent was to stop extralegal violence, essentially aimed at blacks.” > > For many, the term “lynching” conjures specific images - of black men, accused of some real or perceived crime, pulled from jail cells by torch-carrying white mobs, strung up from trees and mutilated. When South Carolina’s legislature passed its anti-lynching law in 1951, it was responding to just such a case - the highly publicized murder of Willie Earle, who was dragged out of jail by a white mob and gunned down in retaliation for the death of a cabbie. > > It was in Greenville County in the state’s western Appalachian foothills that Earle’s slaying occurred - and that is where the statute is invoked most often today. Between 1998 and 2002, 446 people in Greenville County were charged with lynching. Blacks make up 18 percent of the county’s population; they comprised 47 percent of the lynching defendants whose race was specified. [/sub] ---
**Author:** ![tomndebb](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/b9e5f3/32.png) [@tomndebb](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/tomndebb)\ **Post date:** [May 17, 2003, 11:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/anti-lynching-law-now-targets-blacks/175956/2 "2003-05-17T23:14:47Z")
It would seem from the article, (without digging for more information), that when applied to adults, the law is being prosecuted correctly. I think the charges against middle school students are inappropriate _under that law_. (If kids are ganging up on other kids, they should be stopped and prosecuted for assault, but I’m not sure that I’d use a lynch law as the government tool.) On the other hand, while I sympathize with Mr. Marcharia being upset at the word “lynch,” that word is, indeed, the action described when a group assaults an individual. Lynching was a form of terror that developed a particular horror when used to keep blacks “in their place,” but lynching has a long history in the South of being used against whites as well as blacks and the aspect of beatings associated with the word actually preceeded the meaning of murder. ---
**Author:** ![El\_Zagna](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/d2c977/32.png) [@El\_Zagna](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/El_Zagna)\ **Post date:** [May 18, 2003, 12:12am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/anti-lynching-law-now-targets-blacks/175956/3 "2003-05-18T00:12:15Z")
It’s a perfectly good law with a perfectly horrible name. ---
**Author:** ![Blalron](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/35a633/32.png) [@Blalron](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Blalron)\ **Post date:** [May 18, 2003, 10:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/anti-lynching-law-now-targets-blacks/175956/4 "2003-05-18T22:52:42Z")
Isn’t lynching wrong, nobody what the skin color is of the people performing it? ---
**Author:** ![TVAA](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/c57346/32.png) [@TVAA](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TVAA)\ **Post date:** [May 19, 2003, 12:19am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/anti-lynching-law-now-targets-blacks/175956/5 "2003-05-19T00:19:14Z")
Of course not. Lynching is only wrong when it’s used against a member of an oppressed minority group. Isn’t that obvious? ---
**Author:** ![furlibusea](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/aca169/32.png) [@furlibusea](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/furlibusea)\ **Post date:** [May 19, 2003, 2:41am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/anti-lynching-law-now-targets-blacks/175956/6 "2003-05-19T02:41:56Z")
> [@](#): > > Of course not. Lynching is only wrong when it’s used against a member of an oppressed minority group. Isn’t that obvious? The problem is they are charging people with lynching for schoolyard fights. That is like charging someone who punches someone else with torture. They are not the same things. These people maybe should be charged with assault, but it looks like they are jacking up the penalty for the people they don’t like. I think that the lawyer says it best: > [@](#): > > “There’s an attempt to minimize the seriousness which the word ‘lynching’ carries with it,” Broadwater says. After all the years that various people got away with murder and no one would prosicute it, now they chose to use it for school fights. The irony is depressing. ---
**Author:** ![Magiver](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/4491bb/32.png) [@Magiver](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Magiver)\ **Post date:** [May 19, 2003, 3:43am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/anti-lynching-law-now-targets-blacks/175956/7 "2003-05-19T03:43:30Z")
The only thing wrong is the title of the article. The word “target” should not have been used. The laws don’t apply to school fights between 2 people. They apply to fights where there are 2 or more people against a single individual. ---
**Author:** ![Diogenes\_the\_Cynic](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/e99b99/32.png) [@Diogenes\_the\_Cynic](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Diogenes_the_Cynic)\ **Post date:** [May 19, 2003, 4:55am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/anti-lynching-law-now-targets-blacks/175956/8 "2003-05-19T04:55:26Z")
> [@](#): > > The laws don’t apply to school fights between 2 people. They apply to fights where there are 2 or more people against a single individual. Wow, I got lynched practically every day in Junior high School and didn’t even know it. ---
**Author:** ![hermann](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/b487fb/32.png) [@hermann](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/hermann)\ **Post date:** [May 21, 2003, 12:21am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/anti-lynching-law-now-targets-blacks/175956/9 "2003-05-21T00:21:47Z")
Diogenes, only if you went to school in South Carolina. ---
**Author:** ![Kalt](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/b9e5f3/32.png) [@Kalt](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kalt)\ **Post date:** [May 21, 2003, 12:40am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/anti-lynching-law-now-targets-blacks/175956/10 "2003-05-21T00:40:12Z")
This is why blacks need to really think twice about trying so hard to get “hate crime” laws passed (i.e. laws that punish the motive behind the criminal action with extended sentences). Whenever a black commits a crime against a white, it’s gonna be a hate crime (especially in the South, where minds can be read better), then they’re gonna start whining about how hate crime laws are unfair and are keeping them locked up in jail longer and longer. ---
**Author:** ![Magiver](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/4491bb/32.png) [@Magiver](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Magiver)\ **Post date:** [May 21, 2003, 3:42am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/anti-lynching-law-now-targets-blacks/175956/11 "2003-05-21T03:42:50Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by Diogenes the Cynic \* > \*\*Wow, I got lynched practically every day in Junior high School and didn’t even know it. \*\* I guess times have changed. When I was in HS (72-76), it wasn’t kosher to gang up on someone. I rarely had to defend myself at school because I made it painful to try. I didn’t win them all but I made sure the victor looked foolish bragging about it with a black eye. Also, they never came back for a second victory. ---
**Author:** ![TVAA](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/c57346/32.png) [@TVAA](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TVAA)\ **Post date:** [May 21, 2003, 3:52am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/anti-lynching-law-now-targets-blacks/175956/12 "2003-05-21T03:52:30Z")
I wonder how long it will take before more blacks are charged with hate crimes than whites. ---
**Author:** ![Kalt](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/b9e5f3/32.png) [@Kalt](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kalt)\ **Post date:** [May 21, 2003, 3:59am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/anti-lynching-law-now-targets-blacks/175956/13 "2003-05-21T03:59:40Z")
TVAA: apparently it’s already happened… 2 years ago. [http://www.lp.org/press/archive.php?function=view&record=184](http://www.lp.org/press/archive.php?function=view&record=184) _WASHINGTON, DC – African-Americans who thought that hate crime laws would protect them against rampaging white racists are in for a shock: A new FBI study reveals that blacks are proportionally one-and-a-half times more likely to be arrested for hate crimes against whites than vice versa._