That’s just too tenuous for me. There’s a historical basis for the belief that a lynching victim is probably black, and making that assumption (even though it is definitely an assumption) does not suggest that the assume-er hates black people. Or white people.
I wouldn’t call that sexism. It’s an assumption, but your reading of what someone else is saying - even if it’s an incorrect assumption - is not the same as your own viewpoint. I parse your view of the house this way: “I believe most people associate the color blue and sports with boys, and the decorator is using those stereotypes.” Recognizing a stereotype isn’t sexist, and it seems pretty obvious that the room were set up the way they were for a reason. The decorator was using some traditional stereotypes to make the place appear familiar.
The “confusion” I think stems from the fact most lynchings that most anyone alive is aware of are lynchings of blacks in the US south. Only history buffs can tell you of Old West lynchings- that’s why its thought of with a black connotation in the US.
Never having looked “lynching” up, I associated racism against blacks in the American south with it.
I think I’d be surprised to hear an announcer say something about lynching a famous black person in the US. I did hear it on the news the other night, but after the topic was introduced, so there’s no surprise anymore. I’m not confident attributing any bad intent to the sports announcer who used it, though.
In any case, as a practical usage issue, “lynch” is one of those words that I remember is racially charged or at the very least has a racial connotation, so I would try to choose another word without that connotation and would be embarrassed if I slipped and used it in public speaking. It seems wise to err on the side of caution, both in avoiding the words and in being openminded about the motivation when others use them.
Does this still happen with any frequency? I’ve never heard of it on the news, so my ideas of “lynching” are entirely from the wild west and black & white photos of blacks being lynched during the late 1800s - both in the far away and long ago.
Insisting Ms Tilghman’s use of “lynching” had racial overtones is a reflection of Mr Sharpton’s race-consciousness and not Ms Tilghman’s putative racism. It is Mr Sharpton who cannot get past skin color. While Ms Tilghman may have offended Mr Sharpton on color grounds, any offense in her remark about Tiger Woods was color-independent. She would have readily made the same comment had Mr Woods been white. Most of us in the golfing world (and there are more than three of us, btw) have long since forgotten what Mr Woods’ color is. I have been to PGA tournaments where Tiger Woods is playing and seen nothing but worship for the ground on which he walks. There is not a shred of evidence to suggest it was some sort of deep and hidden racist Freudian slip.
There are moments, and this is one of them for me, when individuals who fall all over themselves protecting the world against hurtful language fail to realize that in the wrong instance such “protection” serves merely to impart an implied weakness that is not otherwise there. It is completely counterproductive. Tiger Woods is one of the most powerful individuals in all of sports. He is personal friends with Ms Tighlman. If Mr Woods is offended, I am confident he’ll let Ms Tilghman know. If not, it’s a non-issue. Mr Woods does not need Daddy Sharpton to look out for him, and for Mr Sharpton to do so without being asked suggest that Mr Sharpton thinks Mr Woods is incapable of defending himself.
Oh no, I meant your average person alive today, not a History buff, only knows of the lynchings they have seen pictures of or heard about or lived through of blacks in the South in the early 20th Century, so they think of it as a black thing because they don’t know of any other examples.
The period of lynching in the U.S. extends from the 1830s or thereabouts through the 1930s, with several significant lynchings occurring from the 1940s through the 1980s–the latter all resulting in black deaths at the hands of whites.
Prior to the Civil War, most lynchings (often beatings or tarring and feathering that did not necessarily end in death) were imposed by white Southerners on white Southerners for offenses against the culture.
Following the Civil War, lynchings became an extremely popular method of suppressing black rights in the East while serving as a method of vigilante “justice” in the West. The majority of the Western lynchings were finished before 1900, but the lynching of blacks in the East continued for another thirty years on a semi-regular basis. (Note that while the origin of the practice, under that name, was in the South, after 1900 the practice moved North and blacks were lynched in Chicago and Duluth among other places, although it remained primarily a Southern practice.)
Lynchings of rustlers, cardsharps, and horse thieves in the West ended as each state-becoming-territory accumulated enough population to hire sufficient law enforcement officers, prosecutors, and judges, and to build sufficient prisons that vigilante justice simply faded away.
Lynchings in the East were so prevalent in areas with established law enforcement and courts (with law officers often abetting the act) that blacks organized groups to protest to the Federal government that they needed protection. (The NAACP was begun primarily as a reaction against lynching.)
Between the inadequate teaching of history in our schools and the fact that movies often dealt with Western lynch mobs, (and most TV shows had the hero face down such a mob at least once in each run), while Eastern lynching of blacks was never quite “appropriate” fare for movies or TV, it is not surprising that many folks in the U.S. are far more familiar with “Western justice” than with the practice that killed far more people over far more years. On the other hand, you can be pretty sure that that memory has remained in the black community–witness the Jena, LA events over the last year.
I would turn this around. I suspect that far more people remember Rowdy Yates or Lucas McCain or Cheyenne Bodie or various Jimmy Stewart or Audie Murphy characters facing down lynch mobs than ever think much of lynchings of blacks. On the other hand, it probably depends on the culture in which one was raised.
You don’t think that Frank’s Jewishness played a part in his murder?
The circumstances always play a part, but regardless of the particular race/ethnicity of the victim, if the lynchers want badly enough to make themselves feel righteous by killing someone, they will. Harping on race or ethnicity just makes it easier to rationalize.
Maybe people who are more than 45 years old. I have no idea who any of those people are that you’ve mentioned besides Jimmy Stewart, and I’m assuming that you’re referring to lynching in classic Western movies, a genre that few people in today’s younger generations have any kind of familiarity with. Among everyone that I know, lynching most definitely does have racial connotations. I can say that I definitely think of blacks being lynched, and not anything else, when I hear that word. I don’t claim to be telepathic, but I’d guess that if the headline “Man Lynched in (some state)” appeared at the top of CNN.com, the majority of people who read it would assume it was a black person.
