There’s a lot going on. The situation of immigrant children being separated from their parents locked away in cages, and “lost” is a very serious and sad situation. It amazes me that a country that can lock children in cages and hang people from trees are celebrating freedom today. A Walmart has even been turned into a shelter housing undocumented children separated from parents in Brownsville, Texas. Walmart’s being turned into detention centers and camps was talked about years ago but people said they were just conspiracy theories.
In the midst of this, there is an increase in racist behavior toward Blacks. It seems that every week someone is calling 911. It’s not just “BBQ Becky” or the woman who called the police on the group in Oakland but 911 calls are being made every day. Videos of racial profiling by white police and White Americans have gone viral. A Black girl was selling water without a permit, a white woman assaulted a Black man who “did not belong at the pool,” a Black boy accidentally mowed some of his neighbors lawn and an 89-year-old Black woman was forced to urinate in public after being denied the use of the bathroom at a Circle K gas station.
Lynchings are also taking place regularly, even though no one’s talking about it. It is happening so much that Congress’s three African-American senators introduced a bipartisan bill Friday to make lynching a federal crime. “The Justice for Victims of Lynching Act of 2018 notes that during the first half of the 20th century nearly 200 attempts to pass anti-lynching legislation failed to gain support from the Senate despite urging from seven sitting presidents.”
What they won’t say is that Lynchings didn’t stop there.
The body of Frederick Jermaine Carter, 26, was found in 2010 hanging from an oak tree in the predominantly white North Greenwood area of Leflore County, Mississippi, Otis Byrd’s body was found hanging from a tree in 2015, and on April 18, 2018, the mutilated bodies of two young African-American men, Alize Ramon Smith and Jarron Keonte Moreland, were found in a pond near Moore, Oklahoma. A woman was discovered hung near a Walmart in College Park, Georgia on May 14. And a man was found near Atlanta University Center on April 27. (Essence also listed 5 additional attempted Lynch cases.) Many of these cases are deemed suicides. That’s for the people who do not know any better.
…and the myriad of unarmed Blacks being shot and killed daily which are now being deemed modern-day lynchings.
“The tragic shooting deaths of 17-year old Trayvon Martin in 2012 and 18-year old Michael Brown in 2014 reawakened the nation to the epidemic of killings of unarmed blacks by private citizens and law enforcement officers. Sadly, the shooting of unarmed blacks seemingly continues unabated despite the numerous nation wide street protests, town hall meetings, and pledges from politicians and law enforcement agencies to address this systemic problem. According to the Washington Post, “Although black men make up only 6 percent of the U.S. population, they account for 40 percent of the unarmed men shot to death by police in 2015. What is more, the Post’s analysis documents that black men were seven times more likely than white men to die by police gunfire while unarmed. Whereas in 2012, Trayvon Martin was literally the poster child for unjustified killings of unarmed blacks, today there are a litany of black victims (Eric Garner, Walter Scott, Tamir Rice to name a few) that can fill that role.” (Source: 21st Century Lynchings)
READ MORE ON THE ANTI-LYNCHING BILL HERE.
The PBS Blog 