This is a tale of four Georges. The first George, George Santayana (aka Jorge Agustín Nicolás Ruiz de Santayana y Borrás) famously penned, “Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.” Our second George is Gorge Zimmerman, the erstwhile Latino neighborhood watchman who tragically killed Trayvon Martin, a seventeen year-old African-American. And the third and fourth Georges are George White and George Black. Ironically, White was black and Black was white. Those involved with the George Zimmerman case would do well to remember the tragic history of George White and George Black or, as George Santayana wrote, they will be condemned to repeat it . . .
The Lynching of George White
On June 15, 1903, George F. White, a Negro field hand, was arrested by George A. Black, the newly minted chief of the Wilmington Delaware police department. White was charged with the assault and rape of Helen S. Bishop. Miss Bishop was white. Like Trayvon Martin, she was just seventeen years-old. She died of her wounds a day later and charges against George White were upgraded to murder.
George White was remanded to the County Workhouse to await sentencing. The white community of Wilmington roiled, demanding justice. The black community was also in upheaval over the arrest, believing George White to have been “railroaded.” Sensing trouble, Chief Black closed local black saloons to calm those who were threatening to “load up and hunt trouble.”
The sensationalist media of the day did its part to stoke the flames of controversy with headlines such as “Fiend Assaults Young Woman” and referring to George White as, “the negro ravisher and murder.”
The most overtly provocative actions were the sermons of Reverend Robert A. Elwood of the Wilmington Olivet Presbyterian Church. On Sunday, June 21st, he delivered an inflammatory sermon in which he held leaves stained by Helen Bishop’s blood taken from the crime scene. He demanded immediate justice. That night he addressed a mob of 3,000 and fired them up with equally intense rhetoric.
One day later, the night of June 22nd, a mob (estimates range from several hundred to three thousand) approached the workhouse and demanded that George White be handed over. They were armed with clubs, rifles, and dynamite. Chief George Black informed that mob that anyone who attempted to enter the prison would be shot. However, after warning the crowd he consulted with his senior officers and they jointly decided not to use their weapons against the mob in order to avoid “a great loss of life.”
Consequently, the mob overran the jail, pulled George White from his cell and hauled him into the night. They bound George White’s hands and feet and dragged him to the scene of the crime. Under extreme duress, White confessed to robbing and raping the “Bishop girl,” and then slitting her throat so she would not report him to the police.
Following the coerced confession the mob dragged George White to a field where a pyre was constructed from bales of hay and split rail fencing, and he was burned to death.
The deputy coroner who investigated the scene of the lynching found little evidence of George White’s body due to the intensity of the fire. And because hundreds of “relic hunters” had visited the spot and had removed “ghastly mementos.” The Daily Star of Fredericksburg, Virginia, reported that “One man carried away a foot that had not been consumed.”
The High-tech Lynching of George Zimmerman
The George Zimmerman affair has turned into a high-tech lynching. Taking sensationalistic headlines one step further, today’s soulless media edited audio tapes of George Zimmerman talking to a police dispatcher to make it sound like Zimmerman was a racist. This turned a local controversy into a nationwide “hate crime” furor.
We have two high-profile opportunistic men of the cloth – Reverends Sharpton and Jackson – who have swooped in and enflamed the growing mobs of protesters. Sharpton threatened Sanford authorities, “You are risking going down as the Birmingham and Selma of the 21st century.” Although they give lip service to peaceful demonstration, a crowd in a self-righteous frenzy is not so easily controllable.
Although not concluded, the George Zimmerman high-tech lynching is in danger of repeating the events of 1903 in Wilmington, Delaware. Despite a reported $10,000 bounty placed upon his head by The New Black Panthers Party, I don’t expect this to end in Zimmerman’s death. More likely, it will end with his acquittal.
Then the mobs will feel that the system, once again, failed them. They will feel justified to riot in the streets, destroying cars, homes, and businesses. And we may see innocent people being beaten like Reginald Denny (the white truck driver who was severely beaten during the 1992 L.A. “Rodney King” riots). Or worse.
In the end it doesn’t matter whether a mob is made up of lynching white racists, wronged minorities, English Premier League hooligans, NAZI Party Brown Shirts, anti-Mormon Missourians, flash mob robbers, or frightened Transylvania villagers. Mob rule is not democracy. Mob intimidation does not lead to not justice.
Four Reverends
While Reverends Elwood, Sharpton, and Jackson, took the opportunity of these tragic killings to enflame racial tensions and incite their followers, one reverend did not play to the mob. Rev. Dr. E.A. Bishop, father of slain seventeen year-old Helen. Reverend Bishop called on the people of Wilmington not to try to avenge his daughter’s murder. After George White was lynched, Reverend Bishop “deplored the mob law that had terminated the life of his daughter’s assailant.”
Let the lesson learned from our history be the example of Reverend E.A. Bishop.
WELL DONE ARTICLE!!!
My hat to you sir.
VERY well done.
Thank you.
I’ll second that.
“Mob rule is not democracy.”
I’m pretty sure mob rule actually defines democracy. That’s why the US is a republic; the founding fathers were likely smart enough to know that people in general are too stupid and sheep-like to allow for an undiluted democracy. And people these days sure are proving them right.
“I’m pretty sure mob rule actually defines democracy.”
What a stupid comment. Really – are you “pretty sure” of that, or are you just being obtuse? What mentally and intellectually normal adult equates ochlocracy with democracy?
Probably this:
“Definition of DEMOCRACY
1a : government by the people; especially : rule of the majority”
Source: http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/democracy
I’m “pretty sure” he has a valid point and it sounds a lot less stupid when it’s actually defined. “Rule of the majority” is essentially equal to mob rule. Civility is not a requisite for democracy. “Mental and intellectual normalcy” need not apply either and is solely based on your opinion.
“Democracy, n.:
– A government of the masses.
– Authority derived through mass meeting or any other form of direct expression.
– Results in mobocracy.
– Attitude toward property is communistic… negating property rights.
– Attitude toward law is that the will of the majority shall regulate, whether it is based upon deliberation or governed by passion, prejudice, and impulse, without restraint or regard to consequences.
– Result is demagogism, license, agitation, discontent, [chaos].”
U. S. Army Training Manual No. 2000-25
Quoting an army manual? How about a political science dictionary?
Really, what mentally and intellectually normal adult doesn’t know the difference between a democracy and a constitutional republic; or were you just being obtuse? What a stupid comment. See this is why American students fail history, their parents can’t tell the difference between Athens, Greece in 500BCE and the United States of America in 1776.
What they said.
FLAME DELETED
Mob rule IS democracy. The problem with the whole idea is that its a tyranny of the majority.
And that’s where your constitution comes in.
And when you add in the constitution the US is no longer a democracy, but a Constitutional Republic that rules by representative democracy.
a woman asked Benjamin Franklin what type of government the Constitution was bringing into existence. Franklin replied, “A republic, if you can keep it.”
Nothing in the world scares me more than how easily some of my fellow human beings- some otherwise rational and intelligent, will give in to the urge to join the mob.
An extraordinary and moving piece.
Assuming justice prevails in this case, will it be possible to bring charges against Angela Corey? Or at least make her pay all legal bills? Her intent from the beginning was to charge Z. Clearly he is not guilty of murder, and probably not guilty of a lesser charge either. This “plead high” business needs to stop. There ought to be a law.
Excellent article. Consider this saved to my favorites folder.
William, I have already emailed NBC and MSNBC lambasting their blatant racist reporting from Rev Al, and a lot of their talking heads, and their constant drumbeat of gun control. I guess in the eyes of MSNBC you are guilty until proven innocent, if the agenda is to further their cause in gun control and making criminals the victims. They were disappointed when they could get no traction on the Gabby Giffords shooting. So when this came up (three weeks after the fact) they went balls to the wall to go after race, guns and laws that protect the law abiding. Your article was excellent and very informative, too bad MSNBC will just ignore it.
Wonderfully written.
You have GOT to be kidding me. I understand there’s a pretty simple parallel between the two incidents – each accused individual being at the “mercy” of a mob and racial tension thrown into the mix – but the details make the comparison fall apart.
1) My Google-Fu fails me, but I have no reason to believe Mr. White was afforded anything resembling equitable treatment by the police, and certainly not a one- or two-month period between his suspected involvement with the death of Miss Bishop and his arrest/imprisonment. Mr. Zimmerman, on the other hand, has been afforded far more legal privileges than most folks in similar situations get. (I’m a Floridian so I don’t know what it’s like elsewhere but I reckon if you’re at the scene of a crime and you admit to killing a person you’re going to be sitting in jail for at least a day or two.) Not saying I disagree with the allowances Mr. Zimmerman has enjoyed – my opinion on that matter isn’t germane to the topic at hand – but there is a very real difference in treatment between the two cases.
2) Here’s a HUGE point – the legal system has, so far, protected Mr. Zimmerman – as they should; after all, mob violence is unacceptable in a civilized society. However, the legal system very obviously did NOT protect Mr. White – in fact, its representatives agreed to allow some of the most grievous harm imaginable to be done to him without (apparently) so much as a token resistance. There is NO equivalence between the situation of a man defended by the legal system (I’m assuming Mr. Zimmerman will be defended appropriately throughout the legal proceedings against him) and one hung out to dry – or should that be burn? – by it.
3) We don’t know everything that happened in either case but we do know that Mr. Zimmerman’s case was most likely easily avoidable – would anybody care to venture the same opinion for Mr. White’s predicament? Don’t think so.
Long story short, I find this article beyond flippant toward the very real history of racial discrimination we’ve gone through in this country. I certainly don’t disagree with your premise – “race issues mixed with mob violence (or just mob violence) ain’t good, mmkay?” – but the way you went about fleshing out your argument/telling your story is borderline offensive, and not in a thought-provoking way.
Don’t know if any AI here subscribe or belong to Front Sight, but I just received a video with I think one of GZ attorneys talking to reporters. Don’t know how to share the video, but since it’s on Front Sight, I would imagine it can be copied.
so you are using historic example of black men being killed in a extralegal fashion to justify your pity party surrounding the “high tech” lynching of GZ in which he has faced no actual physical violence because he has been in hiding since this story gained traction? oh poor baby Zman, who died and who is still alive here?
i don’t recall GZ being hung until he died and then spectators (along with their picnic baskets and children in tow) come up and cut off body parts as souvenirs. Yes, these were regular occurrences at lynching events in the 19th and 20th centuries. eyes, ears, noses, fingers and especially genitalia, to “take” their manhood and masculinity away, look it up.
using example of people who were literally KILLED for being Black and having stereotypes projected upon their lives and bodies, to the situation that GZ PUT HIMSELF IN, is insulting to the dead, those who were truly killed illegally.
just let the trial happen and the evidence present itself, i don’t care what legal credentials people have, they are not Angela Correy and have not seen the evidence collected in its entirety.
i am not crazy about the ways in which this case has been presented in the media either, just to make that point clear.
“Sharpton threatened Sanford authorities, “You are risking going down as the Birmingham and Selma of the 21st century.”
right so the Black community has no agency for itself collectively or individually, and has to be taught its own history by the likes of rev’s Al and Jessie because no one in the community is educated enough to know this, or experienced it for themselves?
trying to use history as an argument against a community’s reaction to a killing in a particular way BECAUSE of this history is problematic and takes neither culture or history into account. aside from the narrow slice of lynching historiography (cited?) in this article.
am i a shill for the NEW black panther party (aka: Muslim extremest aholes), NOPE, those fools could not come up with 10,000 legit dollars if their lives depended on it. They are being employed as a bogyman in the woe is Zimmerman camp to engender a very thin “reverse racism” argument. while this post is well researched, (and a slick title to boot) it would be ripped to shreds in an academic setting.
sorry if this is double post, but i need to put in my 2 cents in reaction to this article:
so you are using historic example of black men being killed in a extralegal fashion to justify your pity party surrounding the “high tech” lynching of GZ in which he has faced no actual physical violence because he has been in hiding since this story gained traction? oh poor baby Zman, who died and who is still alive here?
i don’t recall GZ being hung until he died and then spectators (along with their picnic baskets and children in tow) come up and cut off body parts as souvenirs. Yes, these were regular occurrences at lynching events in the 19th and 20th centuries. eyes, ears, noses, fingers and especially genitalia, to “take” their manhood and masculinity away, look it up.
using example of people who were literally KILLED for being Black and having stereotypes projected upon their lives and bodies, to the situation that GZ PUT HIMSELF IN, is insulting to the dead, those who were truly killed illegally.
just let the trial happen and the evidence present itself, i don’t care what legal credentials people have, they are not Angela Correy and have not seen the evidence collected in its entirety.
i am not crazy about the ways in which this case has been presented in the media either, just to make that point clear.
“Sharpton threatened Sanford authorities, “You are risking going down as the Birmingham and Selma of the 21st century.”
right so the Black community has no agency for itself collectively or individually, and has to be taught its own history by the likes of rev’s Al and Jessie because no one in the community is educated enough to know this, or experienced it for themselves?
trying to use history as an argument against a community’s reaction to a killing in a particular way BECAUSE of this history is problematic and takes neither culture or history into account. aside from the narrow slice of lynching historiography (cited?) in this article.
am i a shill for the NEW black panther party (aka: Muslim extremest aholes), NOPE, those fools could not come up with 10,000 legit dollars if their lives depended on it. They are being employed as a bogyman in the woe is Zimmerman camp to engender a very thin “reverse racism” argument. while this post is well researched, (and a slick title to boot) it would be ripped to shreds in an academic setting.
This would be moving, except that the metaphor is weak and utterly flawed. You ask to readers to be democratic and respect the rule of law, and then proclaim Zimmerman to innocent. You can’t have it both ways, you also have to respect the rule of law and wait for the courts to decide his judgement. Your compassion relies on the innocence of Zimmerman, if the courts deem him guilty then your piece is nothing but prosaic drivel. So I implore you to reserve your judgement and wait.
At no point did the author proclaim Zimmerman’s innocence. At one point, he states he suspects Zimmerman will be acquitted. Big difference, unless I am missing something.
I did not proclaim Zimmerman innocent. The police and DA investigators who examined the crime scene, interviewed Zimmerman, and listened to eye witness testimony determined that there was insufficient evidence to indicate that Zimmerman had committed a crime.
Zimmerman’s indictment was the result of intimidation by a mob of people acting on bad information fed to them by a dishonest media and who were fired-up publicity seeking “reverends.” As such, the indictment is tainted and will likely fail. As I said in the piece, the most likely outcome is that Zimmerman will be acquitted that will most likely lead to destructive and potentially lethal rioting, which would not have happened if the press had acted with integrity and if the mob had not been validated/justified by the presence and words of these self-serving “men of god.”
Sure you did, when you compared Zimmerman to White. Your comparison alleges that white was innocent and was a victim of media and religious fervor, and so too is Zimmerman. If this wasn’t your intention then you should have used a better case for comparability. Your metaphor is faulty, you are not making an “apples to apples” comparison.
If you wanted a better case study you could have used Joe Horn, or even Casey Anthony. However comparing the burning of a black man in a kangaroo court to Zimmerman is just bad taste and faulty logic. It is precisely because of the lynchings and atrocities committed by whites and the government upon Blacks in this country that sparked the outrage.
Once again you are reading things that simply aren’t there. I neither expressed nor implied any opinion regarding George White’s innocence. He might have been caught red handed or he might have been arrested simply because he was black. Whether he was guilty or innocent of murdering Helen Bishop, he, like Zimmerman was victimized by mobocracy (aka ochlocracy).
WCM, this is not the best analogy. You see, one man was killed by a mob, and the other man will have his day in court. Even if it is a BS charge, and he is completely exonerated, he will have gone through a legal case. He has not, in fact, been lynched. Also, I am impressed by your knowing so much about the case: “Zimmerman’s indictment was the result of intimidation by a mob of people acting on bad information fed to them by a dishonest media . . .” As I remember, the best and brightest were saying, as this case started breaking, that none of us know what happened, that we should let the legal process proceed. Well, what has changed? Do any of us know any better what happened? Evidently you know what the good information is and what the bad information is. Heck, I heard his dad say he was innocent, so I guess he is. I agree with you that there is a great chance of violence with the outcome of the case. The problem is that you cannot see the real connection between the two cases. For far too long, African American did not receive a fair shake in the legal system, and that memory will linger for a very, very long time. The community that has risen up very vocally calling for justice truly believes that this is just another case of the legal system denying them justice. I have no idea if this was the case here. But then, none of us “know” what happened.
“Evidently you know what the good information is and what the bad information is.”
Evidently you are not aware that NBC admitted that they edited George Zimmerman’s phone call in such a way that made it sound as if Zimmerman was a racist. After an internal investigation NBC fired the producer responsible “for error made in the production process.” This, my friend, is bad information.
And this gives you insight into what happened between Zimmerman and Martin in what way? The fact that MSNBC are lying ass-hats does not change the fact that we do not know what happened. Look at the timeline when MSNBC edited the tapes in an outrageously Breitbartian manner. People had made up their minds about this case long before MSNBC set their hatchets to work.
I don’t claim any special insight into what transpired between Zimmerman and Martin. Nor am I attempting to exonerate or condemn Zimmerman. This editorial is an evaluation of the the dangerous potential of mobs in situations like this. In this instance, as is often the case, the mobs of protesters have been fed inaccurate information that has led them to believe that this is a “hate crime” and, therefore, a civil rights case.
Other bits of inflammatory misinformation that contradict reliable facts:
– Jesse Jackson and one of his Push representatives reportedly told a congregation of 1600 that Martin was shot in the back of the head (at Eatonville on March 25th). He was shot one time in the chest.
– Zimmerman outweighed Martin by 100 lbs: The police report listed Martin as 6′ and weighing 160 lbs. Zimmerman was listed as 5’9″ and weight not specified. However, New York Times quotes witnesses as estimating Zimmerman’s weight at 170 lbs. The Orlando Sentinal says Zimmerman family members say Zimmerman weighs 190 lbs.
– CNN reported that Zimmerman is recorded as uttering the racial epitaph “F***ing coon” on a 9-1-1 call. Two weeks later after enhancing the unintelligible portion of the recording, the network revised the quote to say “F***ing cold.” The next day CNN presented a forensic audio specialist who said that the Zimmerman in fact said, “F***ing punks.”
This misinformation (including the doctored NBC recording) has fueled the misconception that this was a racially motivated killing. Take these disproved allegations away and there is no evidence that I know of that this homicide was a hate crime or the result of profiling. Other than the fact that Zimmerman’s skin is lighter than Martins, that is.
Again, I defer to the judgment of the police and prosecutors who investigated this incident prior to it becoming tainted by mob politics who conclude that there was insufficient evidence to indicate that Zimmerman had committed a crime.
All true. Now, look at the timeline–when did these lies come out? Long after the locals had felt that justice was not being done. It was the locals who kept on pushing until this story went viral, and then the MSM jumped on board. If the was not a long history of injustices being done, there would not be a place for Jackson and Sharpton. You are looking at the issue and seeing if from the second floor up; the foundation of racial inequity is the problem.
Also, if you take the time to look it up because you won’t see it on biased MSM, before TM’s Twitter account was edited then deactivated there were several interesting things there. Not the photos of the gold teeth and flashing gang signals, not all of the tweets of him and his customers setting up drug deals (I could care less about either) or his bag of jewelry, wedding rings and “burglary kit” not my words – his schools words.
The thing that really caught my attention was the many Tweets (one was from his older brother – the same brother who has been telling the media lately that TM was the most wholesome and gentle human being and has never been in a fight in his life and never could have hit GZ because he never punched or fought a person in his entire life)
congratulating TM on his “one-punch knockout” of his cracker school bus driver. If you look at the tweets congratulating TM on knocking out his white (cracker – not my words) you’ll notice they all occur several days before his suspension for the “empty baggies.” I’m not saying that he was really suspended for knocking out his bus driver, but many people have thought that a two week suspension for an empty zip lock bag seems extreme. Being suspended two weeks for tardiness seems unusually long as well. However we have no proof that he was suspended for anything other than the story they told us, because since he was/is a minor the school cannot legally tell us the reason. It is interesting that someone immediately removed some photos and many tweets after TM passed away, but they missed the bus driver tweets at first, then removed them. But even though they were removed you can still see some if them if you Google it.
I’m not saying TM is guilty or did ANYTHING wrong, I don’t know, none of us do. But if he did knockout his school bus driver less than two weeks before the incident took place, it then could possibly show a potential pattern of behavior and show he is capable of punching someone (and punching them hard – must punch hard to knock out a grown man). I would love to see an interviewer ask his brother about that tweet the next time he is on TV saying his brother TM could never ever hit anyone and never has. “If that’s true then how come you tweeted him congratulating him on knocking out his school bus driver?” I would love to see someone ask him that question but nobody ever will, it goes against their political narrative.
Like I said this doesn’t prove anything about what happened that night, doesn’t show guilt or innocence on either side, but it at least raises some questions to the story that I think we would all like to hear the answers to. Just because someone sucker punched and initiated an attack knocking someone out, doesn’t mean that person did the same thing two weeks later. But if it is proven that he did do it, it at least shows he is CAPABLE of it, not that he necessarily did it. It is important because his family is saying he wasn’t even capable of punching someone.
The photos of the “gold teeth” were a fake gold grill, his twitter account was not no limit nigga and most of the other crap published about it was false.
Here’s a better look.
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2127114/Trayvon-Martin-Twitter-Teen-obsessed-girls-jokes-ghetto-culture.html
Also, if you take the time to look it up because you won’t see it on biased MSM, before TM’s Twitter account was edited then deactivated there were several interesting things there. Not the photos of the gold teeth and flashing gang signals, not all of the tweets of him and his customers setting up drug deals (I could care less about either) or his bag of jewelry, wedding rings and “burglary kit” not my words – his schools words.
The thing that really caught my attention was the many Tweets (one was from his older brother – the same brother who has been telling the media lately that TM was the most wholesome and gentle human being and has never been in a fight in his life and never could have hit GZ because he never punched or fought a person in his entire life)
congratulating TM on his “one-punch knockout” of his cracker school bus driver. If you look at the tweets congratulating TM on knocking out his white (cracker – not my words) you’ll notice they all occur several days before his suspension for the “empty baggies.” I’m not saying that he was really suspended for knocking out his bus driver, but many people have thought that a two week suspension for an empty zip lock bag seems extreme. Being suspended two weeks for tardiness seems unusually long as well. However we have no proof that he was suspended for anything other than the story they told us, because since he was/is a minor the school cannot legally tell us the reason. It is interesting that someone immediately removed some photos and many tweets after TM passed away, but they missed the bus driver tweets at first, then removed them. But even though they were removed you can still see some if them if you Google it.
I’m not saying TM is guilty or did ANYTHING wrong, I don’t know, none of us do. But if he did knockout his school bus driver less than two weeks before the incident took place, it then could possibly show a potential pattern of behavior and show he is capable of punching someone (and punching them hard – must punch hard to knock out a grown man). I would love to see an interviewer ask his brother about that tweet the next time he is on TV saying his brother TM could never ever hit anyone and never has. “If that’s true then how come you tweeted him congratulating him on knocking out his school bus driver?” I would love to see someone ask him that question but nobody ever will, it goes against their political narrative.
Like I said this doesn’t prove anything about what happened that night, doesn’t show guilt or innocence on either side, but it at least raises some questions to the story that I think we would all like to hear the answers to. Just because someone sucker punched and initiated an attack knocking someone out, doesn’t mean that person did the same thing two weeks later. But if it is proven that he did do it, it at least shows he is CAPABLE of it, not that he necessarily did it. It is important because his family is saying he wasn’t even capable of punching someone else.
FLAME (AGAINST THE SITE) DELETED
Its a pretty big stretch to compare a guy getting immediately arrested, dragged from his jail cell, and burned to death with no trial in the span of a few days to the current, modern day media circus. In fact, I’d say the author’s entire chain of logic is broken.
The whole media circus is really the result of the incompetence of the local authorities in investigating and dealing with this matter.
It was wrong for the investigation of Zimmerman to be so casual and sloppy in the early stages. It was wrong of the Sanford prosecutor to decide so quickly not to follow the lead investigator’s advice and charge with manslaughter.
And its even more wrong for Angela Corey to overcompensate with a ridiculous charge of Murder 2…. It’ll simply lead to a quick acquittal and alot of pissed off people. Manslaughter would’ve been a more understandable charge..
sdog, irock, josh… thanks for confirming I’m not the only one out there who noticed the maddening lack of ability of this author to draw appropriate parallels, to put it charitably.
@ LT
thanks be to god on that one. Big fan of TTAG here btw, you guys are great.
Don’t thank me thank my Liberal Arts degree!
+1 lol, i guess i am outed too in that regard.
I think you’re being too literal. The author isn’t saying the two situations are the exact same or that every. single. detail. is the same. He didn’t opine on wether or not either one was guilty or innocent. He didn’t say that Z being harassed and threatened on the internet was the same as White being burned alive. All he said was “Mob justice convicts people without evidence.” That’s it. He picked this (George White) particular incident because of the attention grabbing coincidence in names.
He’s simply drawing paralells between the (kangaroo) court of mob law of 1903 convicting George White and the court of public opinion of today convicting George Zimmerman. Both of them done without even a simblance of evidence or due process.
Chill the fvck out.
I’d say I am being pretty chill about this – I’m just making an observation. I’m certainly not tossing (minced) profanity around, after all. Also, try though y’might y’can’t rewrite what I wrote – nowhere in my comment did I imply that the author was equating every. single. detail. between the two cases, merely that the two cases were more than a bit too disparate to make a straight up comparison – the fact that one man is enjoying the protection of the law and the other man was deprived of it being the key issue.
As I believe I alluded to in my original post, there were other cases he could’ve brought up involving judgment without factual knowledge being mixed up with race but he didn’t – that was entirely his choice. Still, I’m sure the regular readership of this site will glance at the article, nod their heads in approval, and move on, so points to him for bringing in the extra traffic, I suppose.
So in 100 years we have gone from a mob lynching a black man to a mob lynching a white man, I guess that’s progress to some people. More like lack of change.
Lemme know when Zimmerman has so much as a hand from a random member of the mob wrapped around his throat, thanks.
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