Kuros
Joined: 27 Apr 2004
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 Posted: Fri Nov 30, 2007 12:54 pm Post subject: Torture in American History |
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Although I'm growing tired of Sullivan's silly pro-Obama riffs, he always has something worth reading everyday.
Torture in American History
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The ugly truth is that for the 100 years between the end of the Civil War and the Civil Rights Movement, this country committed torture against thousands of its own citizens.
White Southerners, faced with the specter of black economic mobility, developed a variety of methods to squelch these advancements, the most violent and dehumanizing of which was the spectacle lynching. The term lynching evokes a scene of spontaneous violence hastily committed by small group of hysterical citizens, but the sad reality is that a typical lynching was a deliberate, organized ritual that unfolded over the course of days or weeks, often in collusion with local law enforcement.
Newspapers advertised the event and thousands of spectators attended with wives and children in tow, snapping photographs, purchasing concessions and memorabilia, and eagerly discussing the means of execution. Hanging was the most common method, but lynchings incorporated a combination of torture techniques including castration, branding with hot irons, eye-gouging, severing of appendages and burning alive. In some cases, spectators rummaged through the leftover ashes searching for grim souvenirs.
At one particularly notorious lynching in Paris, Texas, the crowd numbered 10,000. Take a moment to let that number sink in. 10,000 men, women and children munched on popcorn and snapped photos as a black man was tortured and burned alive.
This is our legacy. And it goes a long way toward explaining the synthesis of "today's Dixie-based, pro-torture, anti-immigrant GOP." |
I just want to note: this is not Anti-South. There's a lot to like about the South. And while I'm at it, not all Republicans embrace torture. This post is strictly anti-torture and anti-racist.
There's a photo, too, but I do not want to post it here. Its a bit gruesome. |
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