Rep. Paul Sherrell (R-TN) wants to bring back lynching

I understood that he meant Tennessee house- he did not say us Congress. But perhaps that is because I’ve heard it reported multiple times prior, I’m not sure. But I did not jump to US Congress person.

What else would you call hanging by a tree? I have a lot of ponderings over the difference of hanging by a tree but I can’t bring myself to voice them as other methods are not actually any less barbaric.

All in all I’m appalled that society wants to return to this kind of barbarism. Add into that the separate/segregated Justice system proposed in Jackson Ms and we are all set up to just execute people willy nilly with fake trials. I can not go back to that kind of society. I just can not.

Edited: Ok this pondering I will voice, ‘hanging by a tree’ specifically implies not caring about due process, ‘hanging by a tree’ implies not even taking the time for a sham fake trial much less a real valid trial and an appeal. I can barely believe we are discussing hanging people at all much less adding in the implication of what ‘hanging by a tree’ adds to the situation.

Repulsive? Yep. To be expected? Yep. These are the same women whose ancestors put on their Sunday best to watch life leave Black bodies. Nobody wants to talk about the why of it all either. Just coded language and circles. And history repeating itself.

He described this man as “Rep. Paul Sherrell (R-TN).” (R-TN) is a descriptor for a U.S. Congressman from Tennessee. As he was referring to a Tennessee State House member, he should have described him as (R-City Name). Better yet, he should have labeled him as a TN state representative.

This isn’t an average member of society we’re referring to. BTC is an established journalist and he has an obligation to be accurate in his choice of words. As a political reporter, he certainly ought to know better.

And yes, I believe Sherrell’s use of “hanging from a tree” to be an oblique reference to lynching. But hanging from a tree also has a long history that pre-dates the existence of the United States, our system of slavery, and our history of lynching. The term lynching by its very definition does not mean a legally-approved execution. He may have deliberately brought the term to mind, but he did not call for a return to lynching. BTC chose that terminology.

I agree with everything else you said.

A lawful execution? Why were there no sentences handed down when my ancestors were lynched? Some pretty heinous shit has been considered perfectly fine in the eyes of the law you know. And it’s no wonder why. There will always be “good people” who aren’t actually.

lynchinginamerica.eji.org/report/



Even as lynchings became more frequently deadly, they differed greatly by region. An individual subject to a frontier lynching typically was accused of a crime such as murder or robbery, given some form of process and trial, and hanged without any additional torture or foul play.120 Southern lynchings, on the other hand, were commonly extrajudicial and employed to defend slavery.121 Between 1830 and 1860, Southern mobs killed an estimated 130 white individuals122 and at least 400 enslaved Black people. Most were lynched under suspicion of conspiring to mount a slave uprising—a growing but largely unsubstantiated fear among whites in slaveholding states.123 In addition, Southern lynchings of African Americans were distinct from lynchings of whites, and often featured extreme brutality such as burning, torture, mutilation, and decapitation of the victim.124
Southern lynching took on an even more racialized character after the Civil War. The act and threat of lynching became “primarily a technique of enforcing racial exploitation—economic, political, and cultural.”125

The character of the violence also changed as gruesome public spectacle lynchings became much more common. At these often festive community gatherings, large crowds of whites watched and participated in the Black victims’ prolonged torture, mutilation, dismemberment, and burning at the stake.130 Such brutally violent methods of execution had almost never been applied to whites in America. Indeed, public spectacle lynchings drew from and perpetuated the belief that Africans were subhuman—a myth that had been used to justify centuries of enslavement, and now fueled and purportedly justified terrorism aimed at newly-emancipated African American communities.131 A report published in 1905 explained that

In 1906, Edward Johnson, a Black man, was convicted of raping a white woman and sentenced to death by an all-white jury in Chattanooga, Tennessee. His attorneys appealed the case and won a rare stay of execution from the United States Supreme Court. In response, a white mob seized Mr. Johnson from the jail, which had been vacated by the sheriff and his staff, dragged him through the streets, hanged him from the second span of the Walnut Street Bridge, and shot him hundreds of times. The mob left a note pinned on the corpse that read: “To Justice Harlan. Come get your nigger now.”134 Mr. Johnson used his last words to declare his innocence. Nearly a century later, he was cleared of the rape.135
Through lynching, Southern white communities asserted their racial dominance over the region’s political and economic resources—a dominance first achieved through slavery would now be restored through blood and terror.

The whole thing/discussion is horrific!!!!

He knows exactly what he was saying and the affect it would have.

Beyond that the intent of his speech 'hanging by a tree' is to direct and incite fear, particularly in POC.

There are no excuses.