House passes anti-lynching bill 422-3

Reason given by Justin Amash, for voting against it 2 years ago:

"To be clear, the bill does not make lynching a new federal hate crime. Murdering someone on account of their race, or conspiring to do so, is not legal under federal law. It’s already a federal crime, and it’s already a hate crime."

It still has to get thru the senate. I’d like to hope that it will but the obstructionism is real there.

I’m running low on hope that they will do the right thing.

Because after the thousands & thousands of lynchings committed in the US, many either by ‘law enforcement’ or law enforcement just looked away, it is about time we actually formally as a society acknowledge it is wrong and it will not be accepted.

The one that came OUT of those centuries of injustice.

"Jim Loewen, author of “Sundown Towns,” a book about American towns that refused to allow African-Americans to live in their communities, said African-Americans migrated to high-populated urban areas after the start of the lynching era.

Detroit and Cleveland, Ohio, saw a 42.5 percent and 36.8 percent increase in African-American population between 1910 and 1970, respectively, according to the lynching report. Jacksonville, Florida, saw a decrease of 28.5 percent.

This caused the competition for jobs to increase between the recently migrated African-Americans and the local white people, Loewen said. This angered some white Northerners, creating racial bias nearly as bad as some areas in the South.

“This wasn’t, and isn’t, just a Southern problem,” Loewen said."

Or do you think the world sprung into existence when you were born and NOTHING in the past (looking at you REDLINING) affects the deplorable state of racism and income inequality between races TODAY!?!??!?!?!

Lynchings aren't something of far long ago. Think George Floyd and Armaud Arbery. In my opinion, their deaths were lynchings.

I hope this bill passes the Senate.

I don’t understand your post, what exactly are you so worked up about by what I said?

Are you pro lynching?
Debating wether LEO participated?
Dismayed that we are admitting how horrible it is way too late?

What exactly about my post are you so angry about that you needed a multi paragraph bolded smackdown? Most of what you posted verifies what I said.

They were wrong are wrong and we at some point ought to address that as a nation no?

I believe that I've stated previously my belief that lawmaking should go to a one law, one bill setup, even though that may require an amendment to the Constitution. It would improve accountability, without eliminating the congressmen's ability to do their standard "horse-trading," because they could still play "I'll vote for your this if you vote for my that." The current system allows horrible ideas to be passed buried in bills containing good ones, and they can weasel out of where they really stand on anything. But, of course, that's why this will never happen. It's maddening.

Maybe individuals have acknowledged that lynching is wrong but it's important for our federal legislative body to recognize that lynching is illegal. And it's important to make lynching a federal hate crime and send a clear message that there is zero tolerance.

www.booker.senate.gov/news/press/as-house-passes-anti-lynching-act-booker-scott-introduce-companion-bill-in-senate-to-make-lynching-a-federal-crime

Used by white supremacists to oppress and subjugate Black communities, lynching is a form of racialized violence that has permeated much of our nation’s past and must now be reckoned with. To that end, I am proud to introduce this legislation to help us acknowledge the pain caused by lynchings and make the shameful practice a federal crime. Although this bill will not undo the terror and fear of the past, it’s a necessary step that our nation must take to move forward.”

"While we cannot erase our nation's past, we can work toward a better future for all Americans," said Sen. Scott. "The Emmett Till Anti-lynching Act will do just that. This long-overdue piece of legislation sends a clear message: We will not tolerate hatred and violence against our fellow Americans."

“It's important that our nation affirm its commitment to rejecting lawlessness, violence and bigotry,” said Bryan Stevenson, founder and Executive Director of the Equal Justice Initiative. “It's as important today as it was decades ago which makes the bill timely and urgent.”

"To be clear, the bill does not make lynching a new federal hate crime. Murdering someone on account of their race, or conspiring to do so, is not legal under federal law. It’s already a federal crime, and it’s already a hate crime."




Our past. It already has been reckoned with. James Byrd's lynching led to the passage of a Texan hate crimes law and later led to the Matthew Shepard and James Byrd Jr. Hate Crimes Prevention Act in 2009.

For Ahmaud Arbery Georgia created hate crimes legislation in June 2020




We don't need another law to do that, it already IS a federal crime. 




Why is it necessary to have another law that does nothing new, in order to move forward? We have ALREADY moved so far forward by creating laws and rejecting this evil, so long ago and then forward again, more recently. For the good. 



It is NOT long overdue, we have done it already and those laws already sent a very clear message. 




Affirm "rejecting lawlessness". And reaffirm it.  And reaffirm it as many times as anyone likes. What we don't need is another law that does what the previous laws already do, in order to affirm rejecting lawlessness.




James Byrd's murderers were the first white men to be sentenced to death for killing a black person in the history of modern Texas.
All of Ahmaud Arbery's murderers were sentenced to life.  

"Lawmakers estimated they had tried more than 200 times to pass a measure to explicitly criminalize a type of attack that has long terrorized Black Americans."

I was discussing why people are so opposed to a law that does the same thing as the laws we already have. Where was I hostile?

They’ll say anything (even if not accurate) to “own those Libs”!

“Democratically driven ku klux klan”

Are YOU ready to acknowledge the party behind these modern day horrific crimes?

You want to acknowledge just exactly which party NOW funds, supports, gives a platform to the KKK?

One needs to look no further than the current, 2022 Republican Party.

“KKK or the Klan, is an American white supremacist terrorist and hate group whose primary targets are African Americans, Jews, Latinos, Asian Americans, Catholics, Native Americans as well as immigrants, leftists, homosexuals, Muslims, and atheists.”

The current Republican Party has been actively creating legislation to limit or suppress the rights of every group listed in the preceding paragraph.

The murderers of Ahmad Arbery were trump loving’ good ol’ boy modern day republicans. And their very offensive legal counsel’s statements on her clients murders attempted to excuse them in the most offensive racist ways. (She’s also Republican)

“Princeton University Edwards Professor of American History Tera Hunter told USA TODAY that this trope is a fallback argument used to discredit current Democratic Party policies.”

“At the core of the effort to discredit the current Democratic Party is the refusal to accept the realignment of the party structure in the mid-20th century,” Hunt said.

“A lot of people like to skip over the fact that when it comes to race relations, historically, Republicans and Democrats switched positions.” (Trevor Noah)

“As the Democrats introduced policies to support voting rights, it became the favored party for most Black voters and has remained so since. With that realignment, many racist voters who opposed the Civil Rights Act of 1964 left the Democratic Party to become Republicans.


“That was 150 years ago and the parties are totally different today,” Grinspan said. “It’s like a dinosaur to a modern-day bird. So much evolution has happened. These really aren’t the same groups anymore.”

Noah has mocked the political trope of highlighting the Democratic Party’s racist past to question its current progressive policies.

“That was true in like 1910, but then after World War II Democratic presidents like Truman and Johnson started supporting civil rights laws and that led to a mass exodus of racists from the Democratic Party,” Noah mocked the claim in 2016: “Just because something used to be something doesn’t mean it still is. What matters more is what it is now.”




You seriously need to read an actual history book on the KKK, instead of just sticking with the current conservative talking points/propaganda, to understand just how the KKK has evolved from the 1800’s to 2022.

I think some of the arguments here stem from not fully understanding what this bill is about.

I’ll set aside for now the deeper meaning this has for black Americans and other POC because I’m just not inclined anymore to satisfy a segment of the population with a justification that is already evident. I’ll instead focus on the actual legal components.

Yes, the current hate crime law—Federal Code 18, Section 249—already makes an offense involving race and color a federal crime if the offense results in bodily injury or death. For bodily injury, the imprisonment is not more than ten years. (For clarification, “bodily injury” is serious bodily injury already defined by existing federal code. It is not minor bodily harm as Rand Paul had initially implied by saying “Bruises could be considered lynching.”) For death or offense with aggravating factors, it’s any term unconstrained by the limits under bodily injury or life imprisonment. That’s how it stands to-date.

The purpose of this bill is to amend that federal code by adding a paragraph specifically for lynching whereby an offense involving a conspiracy that causes serious bodily injury on the basis of race and color would be subject to not more than thirty years imprisonment. Put simply, the offense of lynching would be a specific crime that carries a higher sentence for bodily injury. It also amends existing code by adding other conspiracies as an aggravating factor.

For non-POC to recognize that modern-day lynching is a reality BUT at the same time discredit the bill as a redundant or unneeded remedy is, frankly, bewildering to me. The overarching principle that undergirds the bill is the necessary and long overdue recognition and establishment that the crime of lynching is in and of itself so heinous an offense that it merits federal codification.