Thread: WTF Is Wrong With People!?

So today, I was listening to a podcast and they mentioned the lynching of Claude Neal, a little bit of America's dark past I hadn't heard of before. I looked it up, and was utterly stunned.

I mean, I knew in a sort of intellectual, historical sense that lynchings occurred, but I never knew they were PARTIES. I didn't know they were advertised in the motherloving NEWSPAPER before ("Where his body will be mutilated by the father...") and that several thousand people would gladly take part in the torture, murder and mutilation of a man accused of murder. Not convicted, accused...

It was not an isolated incident, of course. Lynchings continued into the '60s, even the 80s and, arguably, 90s. A blood drenched history, that is NOT dead, that lives and breathes and damns the USA still. The story of this evil (there is no other word for it) will haunt me...

And then. And then I see this. The South shall rise again, indeed.

Originally Posted by JimR

And then. And then I see this. The South shall rise again, indeed.

It is difficult to believe something like that happening even today in the western world. That is sick.
The world is not so nice place always. People have their dark sides, but i thought that they could hide them and keep them locked inside. The layer of civilisation seems to be very thin.

Whenever people encourage a strong sense of 'US vs THEM', the doors are opened for sadism and abuse in the name of righteousness.

It just happens the the race issue in the US was one of those matters in which such things thrived.

In Europe similar things happened but mostly related to religious matters. Western Europe has been relatively free of such incidents, probably due to the fact that WW2 left us without anything to fight with, or over. Additionally, the holocaust was still on everyones mind. Eastern Europe still had such issues until not too long ago, possibly due to significant ethnic and religious diversity.

That said, I don't think the South deserves to get flak over this recent incident. As far as I can interpret what happened: it is a political statement not a racial one.

Originally Posted by Sailor

It is difficult to believe something like that happening even today in the western world. That is sick.
The world is not so nice place always. People have their dark sides, but i thought that they could hide them and keep them locked inside. The layer of civilisation seems to be very thin.

This is the number one reason I am thankful for the internet and modern communication media. It gets harder and harder to mop stuff under the rug. If bad things happen on a large scale, people will know.

Look at the protests in Iran, or Abu Ghraib, or other similar events: not too long ago, noone outside the intelligence community would have noticed or been given open access to the information. Now, the public knows and if there is the condemnation of the majority, those actions will have consequences.

Originally Posted by Bruno

Whenever people encourage a strong sense of 'US vs THEM', the doors are opened for sadism and abuse in the name of righteousness.

It just happens the the race issue in the US was one of those matters in which such things thrived.

In Europe similar things happened but mostly related to religious matters. Western Europe has been relatively free of such incidents, probably due to the fact that WW2 left us without anything to fight with, or over. Additionally, the holocaust was still on everyones mind. Eastern Europe still had such issues until not too long ago, possibly due to significant ethnic and religious diversity.

That said, I don't think the South deserves to get flak over this recent incident. As far as I can interpret what happened: it is a political statement not a racial one.

Lynching wasn't limited to black/white relations in the US, either, but of course blacks were the main victims. There were also white victims--mostly due, as you said, to religious differences.

But as for your last point, racial statements ARE political, and no way does a noose around a black man's neck get a pass. Nope, this one doesn't get the "We didn't MEAN it that way" excuse. The guys doing that knew EXACTLY what they were saying.

I've always been under the impression that a rather large number of people would be pretty unpleasant were it not for the law keeping them in check.

I think there is always a small minority who will be horrible whatever the rules in place, but I do think theres a worryingly large number of people who are basically the same way, just under a thin veneer of behaving the right way because they have to.

I remember doing some research at school about soldiers behavior during various 20th century wars and, whilst the majority of soldiers were there to do a job there was, on all sides, a number of cases where soldiers committed atrocious acts of brutality just because they thought they could get away with it.

Some people are just plain nasty.

If you'e ever heard Bob Dylan's Desolation Row, you might have wondered about the first line: "They're selling postcards of the hanging..." He didn't make that up. I've seen photos of those postcards depicting just what JimR describes, complete with all the celebration and festivities. Is this the citizen justice discussed in the last few pages of the, "What Would the Founding Fathers Think..." tread? Think about it.

Reminds me of this party:

November 4, 1751

This day George Blumenfield and I to see a hanging at Tyburn of a woman who stole three loaves. Was ready enough for some diversion for have kept close to my business these last days and the stench of the infirmary though one grows accustomed to it is tiresome for long times. Doctor Urquehart himself though pompous has a real mind to the Instruction of his pupils and had kindly taken seats in a nearby house for self, Grge. Blumenfield, St. Clair, Mr. Pope and three other of his young gentleman. On taking our seats found a crowd already gathered such occasions being quite a holiday for the poor people who live in Oxford Street, and also for those in the villages of Paddington and the hamlets along the road leading to Edgeware. A number of the gentry present, standing on the roofs of their coaches both the gentleman and the ladies very fine, the bucks dressing as for a route and the ladies all powdered and patched, monstrous pretty with their scarves and great hats and flowered pannier skirts.

The gallows a big one to take four at once but this day only the woman to be hanged, and with her a boy who is to be half-hanged and then cut down and whipped through the town as a warning to him against begging. George Blumenfield very merry and quizzing the ladies on the coaches and Mr. Pope kindly sends out to a drawer for cans of liquor for us all, which puts us quite happy to watch the Turning Off. The woman arrives after we had waited some twenty minutes a young wench not ill-favoured, driven in a cart tied on to a board so that she might not leap over the side; the hangman greeting her with much cheer and she answering him in kind, so that the crowd and the gentry were Highly Diverted, one buck near me with a vast wig I thought would swoon with mirth, and so she to the Tree and the hangman makes her mount upon a bucket, she being a Vagabond and of no importance, and then fastens the rope about her neck and she blowing him a kiss his assistant pulls away the bucket and she fell with a force that must instantly have deprived her of Her Vital Faculties. Was intrigued to see how the body did jerk so that I thought the rope would break. Then the boy aforesaid, who had been brought there very early so that the execution might prove of instruction to him, was taken up, he squalling in a fashion that made the gentry cry Shame upon His Cowardice, and proving near frantic the hangman did not trouble to tie him to the tree but threw him to the ground and encouraged by shouts from the crowd did kneel upon his chest and strangle him with a cord, removing same before the boy was dead. Then the rogue was pulled to his feet and a bucket of water splashed over him, and so he was taken to the cart in which the woman came and tied to its tail two gentleman nigh our window shouting themselves hoarse with admiration; and the hangman's assistant takes up his whip and the cart moves on the assistant wielding the rope right shrewdly. The woman was cut down and delivered to her farther who had been waiting for her corse with a barrow, and so the crowd disperses and the gentry drive off one lady laying her whip about the ears of the father with his barrow for not being out of the road of her coach. And so to dine with my friends and a very pleasant hour of music and talk afterwards on divers topics. Did learn that the woman hanged was the mother of the boy aforesaid which I trust will be a lesson to him of the Penalties of An Evil Life.

- The Diary of a Surgeon in the Year 1751-1752 by John Knyveton (16)
http://www.pbs.org/kqed/demonbarber/...rnedpigs.html#

From my point i think that the real tragedy, or horror, is the question that what makes people behave like this. The layer of civilization seems to be easy to wipe away.
There are plenty of examples, even today. There is something wrong, or then it is just the nature of human being. To get into madness when the circumstances are right. Sad but true?

I grew up a little different then you...I knew from my grade school years that it was often a "social event" on par with the county fair.

Why? Google "Charlie Birger". All that, and more, happened in my proverbial backyard. Williamson County is till known as "Bloody Williamson" to some of the older folks around here. (I live in a bordering county.)

If you don't want to google it, the long and short of it is that he was the last hanging around these parts.

I've seen pictures of the crowd myself, and "the gallows" still stand today just off the Benton town square. (It's a reproduction of the originals I'm sure.)

Right? Wrong? Idunno....but it is what it is... That's all nearly 100 years ago though.

For some more of my local history try "Herrin Massacre"...I swear, somebody in Hollywood could make a blockbuster out of "Bloody Williamson".