# Mississippi Senator wants "public hanging" ?? **URL:** \ **Category:** Politics & Elections\ **Created:** [November 12, 2018, 8:22am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mississippi-senator-wants-public-hanging/824398 "2018-11-12T08:22:44Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 6
**Author:** ![Chronos](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chronos/32/134_2.png) [@Chronos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chronos)\ **Post date:** [November 26, 2018, 1:50am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mississippi-senator-wants-public-hanging/824398/101 "2018-11-26T01:50:41Z")
Believe it or not, **asahi** , you’re actually being too optimistic there. Jim Crow isn’t the means to hold onto power; the purpose of power is to pass Jim Crow laws. Oppression is, itself, the goal. Remember, when the North Carolina Republicans passed around e-mails on how to most optimally gerrymander, suppress, and otherwise skew the vote, they didn’t ask how Democrats usually vote. They asked how black people do. They don’t want black people voting, _even the few who vote Republican_. And they don’t care about white Democrats voting, except in so far as we’re likely to give too much power to black people. ---
**Author:** ![RTFirefly](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/c77e96/32.png) [@RTFirefly](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RTFirefly)\ **Post date:** [November 26, 2018, 2:04am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mississippi-senator-wants-public-hanging/824398/102 "2018-11-26T02:04:57Z")
> [@UltraVires](#): > > You wouldn’t vote for me even if I didn’t make any of those comments. > > My problem is that in addition to already deciding to not vote for me, you would be on guard to take any innocent comment I would make and claim it was racist or sexist, or advocates genocide or race related murder. You sure know a lot about me. Or rather, some Earth-3743 version of me. :rolleyes: Of course I wouldn’t vote for you even if you didn’t say anything out of bounds. I don’t agree with pretty much anything you stand for - although, like most conservatives these days, you don’t stand for solutions to national problems so much as standing against the solutions that others come up with. Like it says, lead, follow, or get out of the way. Conservatives aren’t leading us anywhere, they aren’t willing to follow either, and they damned sure aren’t willing to get out of the way and let others try to address our problems. And just from the discussion we’re having, remarks by Cindy Hyde-Smith that you regard as innocent are blatantly racist. So trust me, if you were to run for anything, I wouldn’t have to say a damned thing, because most people would notice right off the bat that you were crossing all sorts of lines. ---
**Author:** ![UltraVires](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/u/ecccb3/32.png) [@UltraVires](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/UltraVires)\ **Post date:** [November 26, 2018, 4:28am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mississippi-senator-wants-public-hanging/824398/103 "2018-11-26T04:28:28Z")
> [@Snowboarder\_Bo](#): > > The term “public hanging” means a hanging in public. You don’t get to define terms. I am not defining terms, I am using them as they have been used for years up until this presented a made up opportunity for your side to take a jab at a Republican. Despite your insistence, the term “public hanging” does not simply mean any hanging that occurs in public. It has a specific, well-known meaning that is not really debatable in good faith. Do a google search for “last public hanging.” Ignore the results you get about this election. Tell me if you see one single mention of a lynching referred to as a “public hanging.” You’ll find none. ---
**Author:** ![UltraVires](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/u/ecccb3/32.png) [@UltraVires](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/UltraVires)\ **Post date:** [November 26, 2018, 4:31am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mississippi-senator-wants-public-hanging/824398/104 "2018-11-26T04:31:25Z")
> [@RTFirefly](#): > > And just from the discussion we’re having, remarks by Cindy Hyde-Smith that you regard as innocent are blatantly racist. Ah well, that’s the clincher. Since you have baldly declared it, it must be true. ---
**Author:** ![Lance\_Turbo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lance_turbo/32/6156_2.png) [@Lance\_Turbo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lance_Turbo)\ **Post date:** [November 26, 2018, 4:36am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mississippi-senator-wants-public-hanging/824398/105 "2018-11-26T04:36:18Z")
[Inside A Sickening Moment In Dallas History: A Public Hanging Of A Black Man](http://www.keranews.org/post/inside-sickening-moment-dallas-history-public-hanging-black-man) > [@](#): > > During his trial, a mob of several thousand people interrupted the arraignment at the Old Red Courthouse, and dragged him to the second floor of the building. They hung Brooks from the second-story window. ---
**Author:** ![Lance\_Turbo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lance_turbo/32/6156_2.png) [@Lance\_Turbo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lance_Turbo)\ **Post date:** [November 26, 2018, 4:50am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mississippi-senator-wants-public-hanging/824398/106 "2018-11-26T04:50:07Z")
[Tracing The Story Of ‘Lynch Mob’](https://www.npr.org/sections/codeswitch/2013/09/30/227792122/tracing-the-story-of-lynch-mob) > [@](#): > > The word “lynch” would take on its definition of death by public hanging over time. ---
**Author:** ![Lance\_Turbo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lance_turbo/32/6156_2.png) [@Lance\_Turbo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lance_Turbo)\ **Post date:** [November 26, 2018, 4:52am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mississippi-senator-wants-public-hanging/824398/107 "2018-11-26T04:52:56Z")
[This photo of a black man’s public hanging decorated a Joe’s Crab Shack table](https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/morning-mix/wp/2016/03/11/this-photo-of-a-black-mans-public-hanging-decorated-a-joes-crab-shack-table/?utm_term=.9897011a7624) > [@](#): > > Watch: Joe’s Crab Shack patrons describe finding image of lynching on their table > [@](#): > > Tyrone Williams and Chauntyll Allen said they went to Joe’s Crab Shack in Roseville, Minn., on Wednesday night for a friend’s early birthday dinner when they looked down at their table and saw it: a photograph, embedded inside of the table, depicting the public hanging of a black man. ---
**Author:** ![Lance\_Turbo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lance_turbo/32/6156_2.png) [@Lance\_Turbo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lance_Turbo)\ **Post date:** [November 26, 2018, 4:56am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mississippi-senator-wants-public-hanging/824398/108 "2018-11-26T04:56:20Z")
Last one. I promise. [New photo exhibit examines California’s history of lynching and frontier justice](https://www.scpr.org/news/2012/04/12/32004/photo-exhibit-examines-californias-history-lynchin/) > [@](#): > > If people know of just one public hanging in California, it’s probably that of Tom Thurmond and Jack Holmes — lynched 80 years ago in a downtown San Jose park after allegedly murdering the son of a prominent businessman. ---
**Author:** ![Snowboarder\_Bo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/snowboarder_bo/32/229_2.png) [@Snowboarder\_Bo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Snowboarder_Bo)\ **Post date:** [November 26, 2018, 5:11am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mississippi-senator-wants-public-hanging/824398/109 "2018-11-26T05:11:28Z")
> [@UltraVires](#): > > I am not defining terms, I am using them as they have been used for years up until this presented a made up opportunity for your side to take a jab at a Republican. > > Despite your insistence, the term “public hanging” does not simply mean any hanging that occurs in public. It has a specific, well-known meaning that is not really debatable in good faith. > > Do a google search for “last public hanging.” Ignore the results you get about this election. Tell me if you see one single mention of a lynching referred to as a “public hanging.” You’ll find none. Hey I found a few, and I didn’t even have to use Google! As I said: you don’t get to define terms. ---
**Author:** ![Railer13](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/railer13/32/9742_2.png) [@Railer13](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Railer13)\ **Post date:** [November 26, 2018, 5:26am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mississippi-senator-wants-public-hanging/824398/110 "2018-11-26T05:26:55Z")
> [@UltraVires](#): > > Tell me if you see one single mention of a lynching referred to as a “public hanging.” You’ll find none. Lance found four in less than 30 minutes, including one that postulates that the word ‘lynch’, by definition, means ‘public hanging’. Care to comment? ---
**Author:** ![Budget\_Player\_Cadet](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/budget_player_cadet/32/205_2.png) [@Budget\_Player\_Cadet](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Budget_Player_Cadet)\ **Post date:** [November 26, 2018, 12:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mississippi-senator-wants-public-hanging/824398/111 "2018-11-26T12:12:19Z")
**UltraVires** , can we pause for a moment and ask what effect this statement had on _your_ opinion of Hyde-Smith? It seems to me that you don’t see the statement as racist. That you are applying a degree of epistemic charity clearly beyond all of us. So before anyone says “how could this be a dog-whistle, nobody is falling for it”, uh… here we are. But _at best_, this statement is, as **TruCelt** points out, fairly disturbing. But if I had to guess, I’d say you, **UltraVires** , seem to be showing _more_ overt support for this candidate since she made that statement. So where does that leave us? I’d posit that the use of a “dog whistle” isn’t really to “secretly” communicate with the racist base. Rather, the idea is to use a piece of jargon which many people will see as racist, but _those motivated to give the candidate a pass will not_. When you hear “public hanging” in the context of “old white person in mississippi”, doesn’t your mind _immediately_ jump to “lynching”? Well, maybe, but if you like that old white person, you’re probably thinking, “Wait, they wouldn’t say something like _that_. Clearly it’s not racist. Maybe it’s just a saying?” This has three effects - it puts the candidate in the news, it rallies the base, and it _sucks all the air out of the room_. Instead of talking about policy or what the candidates will actually do in office, now the discussion is about “is this candidate racist?” And for a party whose agenda is, by and large, _horribly_ unpopular, that’s a really good thing - they _want_ to be talking about base-rallying wedge issues like racism, rather than, say, about whether their candidates will repeal Obamacare. It’s _deeply_ fucking cynical, but it’s also the strategy that Trump used to great effect, and it’s _so easy to do_ - as long as you’re fairly sure you’re going to lose less support over your statement than you gain by rallying the base and controlling the news cycle, it’s a great strategy. That said, [it seems to be backfiring here](https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2018/11/mississippi-senate-runoff-cindy-hyde-smith-mike-espy-public-hanging-voter-suppression-gaffes.html). Maybe talking about a public hanging and openly advocating voter suppression (in a way which immediately makes people think “racial voter suppression” given the context) was a little _too_ on-the-nose - the point of these statements is that a motivated reasoner can reasonably interpret them as harmless, and this one is _really_ fucking stretching it. But kudos to you for finding a way, I guess. (This may not be a bad time to remind people of a past **UltraVires** post on the subject of race, here: [https://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?p=21287852#post21287852](https://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?p=21287852#post21287852) ) ---
**Author:** ![RTFirefly](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/c77e96/32.png) [@RTFirefly](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RTFirefly)\ **Post date:** [November 26, 2018, 4:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mississippi-senator-wants-public-hanging/824398/112 "2018-11-26T16:04:49Z")
> [@UltraVires](#): > > Ah well, that’s the clincher. Since you have baldly declared it, it must be true. Since you have baldly declared that the term ‘public hanging’ by definition doesn’t include lynchings, no matter how public they might have been, I don’t think you can complain. But yes, candidates who see the world through a lens of prejudice will have to ‘walk on eggshells’ to avoid accidentally saying things that exemplify that world view. You’ll have to excuse me if I lack sympathy for that particular set of difficulties. ---
**Author:** ![Lance\_Turbo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lance_turbo/32/6156_2.png) [@Lance\_Turbo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lance_Turbo)\ **Post date:** [November 26, 2018, 6:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mississippi-senator-wants-public-hanging/824398/113 "2018-11-26T18:56:53Z")
[Two Nooses And Six ‘Hate Signs’ Found On Mississippi Capitol Grounds](https://talkingpointsmemo.com/news/nooses-hate-signs-mississippi-capitol-grounds) Nothing to see here. Just your ordinary everyday references to a time when hanging was a legal execution method in Mississippi. ---
**Author:** ![Ludovic](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/7ab992/32.png) [@Ludovic](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ludovic)\ **Post date:** [November 26, 2018, 7:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mississippi-senator-wants-public-hanging/824398/114 "2018-11-26T19:01:18Z")
Too soon to tell of course but that _specific_ sort of thing is indeed occasionally a false flag. ---
**Author:** ![Rick\_Kitchen](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/rick_kitchen/32/522_2.png) [@Rick\_Kitchen](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Rick_Kitchen)\ **Post date:** [November 26, 2018, 7:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mississippi-senator-wants-public-hanging/824398/115 "2018-11-26T19:09:55Z")
Somebody posted a Facebook meme showing Florida State’s black football coach with a noose around his neck. [http://www.sportingnews.com/us/ncaa-football/news/fan-targets-florida-state-coach-willie-taggart-lynching-meme-university-president-john-thrasher/hf29zi1fir971kt0tso6uis5b](http://www.sportingnews.com/us/ncaa-football/news/fan-targets-florida-state-coach-willie-taggart-lynching-meme-university-president-john-thrasher/hf29zi1fir971kt0tso6uis5b) ---
**Author:** ![Lance\_Turbo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lance_turbo/32/6156_2.png) [@Lance\_Turbo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lance_Turbo)\ **Post date:** [November 26, 2018, 9:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mississippi-senator-wants-public-hanging/824398/116 "2018-11-26T21:35:46Z")
> [@Ludovic](#): > > Too soon to tell of course but that _specific_ sort of thing is indeed occasionally a false flag. Why would someone falsely point out that hanging was once a legally accepted method of capital in most of the United States? That doesn’t even make any sense. ---
**Author:** ![Ludovic](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/7ab992/32.png) [@Ludovic](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ludovic)\ **Post date:** [November 26, 2018, 9:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mississippi-senator-wants-public-hanging/824398/117 "2018-11-26T21:42:47Z")
> [@Lance\_Turbo](#): > > Why would someone falsely point out that hanging was once a legally accepted method of capital in most of the United States? > > That doesn’t even make any sense. I’m not claiming that it makes sense or doesn’t, just pointing out that people sometimes do use lynching imagery or make-up threats as a false flag to either gain sympathy/attention or make people look (more) overtly racist. ---
**Author:** ![Lance\_Turbo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lance_turbo/32/6156_2.png) [@Lance\_Turbo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lance_Turbo)\ **Post date:** [November 26, 2018, 10:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mississippi-senator-wants-public-hanging/824398/118 "2018-11-26T22:41:20Z")
> [@Ludovic](#): > > I’m not claiming that it makes sense or doesn’t, just pointing out that people sometimes do use lynching imagery or make-up threats as a false flag to either gain sympathy/attention or make people look (more) overtly racist. I apologize. I’m doing a poor job of pretending that a noose is not inherently racist in 2018. Carry on. ---
**Author:** ![Chronos](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chronos/32/134_2.png) [@Chronos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chronos)\ **Post date:** [November 26, 2018, 11:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mississippi-senator-wants-public-hanging/824398/119 "2018-11-26T23:37:14Z")
**Lance Turbo** , you’re arguing against a point that **Ludovic** isn’t making. Of course the noose is racist; everyone knows that. And the nooses might have been put up by real racists, for purpose of making a racist statement. Probably so, in fact. But it’s also possible that they were put up by non-racists, in order to try to make the racists look bad. Which is somewhat redundant, because the racists generally do a good enough job of that without help, but people (even people with enough sense to dislike racists) sometimes do foolish things. ---
**Author:** ![Miller](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/miller/32/481_2.png) [@Miller](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Miller)\ **Post date:** [November 27, 2018, 1:42am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mississippi-senator-wants-public-hanging/824398/120 "2018-11-27T01:42:53Z")
> [@Chronos](#): > > **Lance Turbo** , you’re arguing against a point that **Ludovic** isn’t making. Of course the noose is racist; everyone knows that. And the nooses might have been put up by real racists, for purpose of making a racist statement. Probably so, in fact. But it’s also possible that they were put up by non-racists, in order to try to make the racists look bad. Which is somewhat redundant, because the racists generally do a good enough job of that without help, but people (even people with enough sense to dislike racists) sometimes do foolish things. Apparently, [they were put up as part of an anti-racism protest](https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/elections/nooses-found-hanging-mississippi-capitol-n940176), according to the notes that were left with the nooses: > [@](#): > > “On Tuesday Nov. 27, thousands of Mississippians will vote for a senator. We need someone who respects the lives of lynch victims,” one sign said, according to a Capitol Police spokesman who read it to NBC News. > > “We’re hanging nooses to remind people that times haven’t changed,” read another sign. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mississippi-senator-wants-public-hanging/824398.md?page=5) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mississippi-senator-wants-public-hanging/824398.md?page=7)