Lynching

Lynching in a general sense refers to an extrajudicial killing by an informal group.

In this sense, it may refer to, for example, "necklacing", a torture and execution method used in South Africa by Blacks to torture and kill other Blacks who were, for example, suspected of collaborating with the apartheid government, who were suspected criminals, or who were disliked immigrants from other African countries. Necklacing also occurs in other countries, such as in Haiti.

Honor killings may be another form of lynchings.

Lynchings in such a general sense have been common throughout history in all parts of the world, especially in areas lacking an effective and large police force (a recent Western invention) or otherwise lacking a non-corrupt and trustworthy official justice system. In practice, groups such as clans and various informal groups have often punished perceived wrongdoers themselves.

Lynchings, or attempted lynchings, may occur during riots. One example is during the 1992 Los Angeles riots, mainly by Blacks, that killed 58 people after a jury acquitted four police officers of usage of excessive force during the arrest of the Black Rodney King. Another example is the attempted lynching of a group of police officers during the Stonewall Riots, commemorated in annual LGBT pride parades.

However, in politically correct descriptions, the term "lynching" is often only applied to historical lynchings by Whites of Blacks in the United States.

"Lynching is another historical practice used to shame whites. Over the entire period of lynching, 72.7 percent of victims were black, while almost all the rest were white. The number of lynchings peaked in 1892 at 230. Of that number, 161 were black. This means that in 2016, in Chicago alone, more blacks were killed by other blacks than were lynched in any year throughout the entire United States. Black lynch mobs occasionally lynched blacks, and there is at least one recorded case of blacks lynching a white—in 1914 in Clarkesdale, Tennessee, for raping a black woman. In 1872, in Chicot County, Arkansas, a black mob broke three white men out of jail and riddled them with bullets. It is also largely forgotten that the majority of lynchings were not random acts; many victims—probably most—had committed the crime of which they were accused."

"If race were the primary or even a significant factor in lynchings, we would expect blacks in the Old South to have been more likely to suffer from it than those who lived elsewhere. Prof. Murphey explains that on the contrary, during the 1890s blacks living in Mississippi were no more likely to be lynched than blacks living in Kansas. Many people today believe that the civil rights movement finally stamped out lynching, but Prof. Murphey points out that it had virtually died out well before the Second World War. [...] lynching died a natural death as the rule of law was extended into rural areas and people gained greater confidence in it."

See also

• Honor culture and honor violence
• Leo Frank
• LGBT pride parade
• Race and crime: United States - On interracial crime in the United States in general.
• Slavery
• White guilt

External links

• New Lynching Memorial Celebrates White Guilt