Hi Dave, good to hear from you. My point is slightly different than you interpreted it. Tail is being racist by saying the word is acceptable today. That anyone would consider a word describing such a horrific act can ever be acceptable is total BS. Since the majority of the people lynched were black or in some way helped/defended blacks I stand by what I said.

Speyside wrote:

LOL!

2019 Snowflake of the year award goes to Spey for saying the term "Lynch Mob" is racist and unacceptable to use.


Although you might lose style points for showing some decent conviction with your last comment.

Hmmm.
Conviction shows fortitude.
But what if that fortitude is in regards to a nonsense statement based on emotion and misplaced empathy?

We've got a conundrum.


Best part: the term is rarely used today.

Even better part: It's NEVER been deemed racist until, well, Trump.


this place is a hoot.
I'd like to thank our race-driven brother Speyside for keeping things interesting.

tailgater wrote:

The racial aspect of lynching has been discussed in depth well before trump.
Check out "War of Words: The Controversy over the Definition of Lynching, 1899-1940" published in 2000.
It documents the efforts of various groups to come up with definitions for lynching so that they could properly develop statistics around it and determine how many were happening a year. It also documents interesting changes groups like the Klan made (either intentionally or unintentionally) to be able to kill blacks without it being defined as lynching (which brings up serious questions about the statistics around "4000 lynchings").

Just because you never thought of the term lynching as having racial connotations doesn't mean there aren't other groups which have had to live with the racial connotations of it.

victor809 wrote:

I'm not talking about the racial aspect of lynching.
If I were asked the definition of the term "Lynch Mob", I would likely cite a black hanging as an example.
I understand this perfectly fine.

It's 2019.
Nobody is forming an actual Lynch Mob to chase down a black dude for looking at a white woman.
If the term Witch Hunt were used, would we hear from the Wiccas?
It's been warm in New England recently. When I was a kid we called it Indian Summer. Doesn't mean we hate those red-skinned scalpin' bastids any less. It's just that global warming has replaced the term. Otherwise Lizzy Warren would be heap big mad right about now.

tailgater wrote:

As recently as 2013 (and probably earlier) people were recreating the lynching scenes with effigies of obama.

I looked it up, and the most recent actual lynching (only counting actual hanging lynchings...) in the US was in our lifetime (1981) and involved the Klan. He was lynched literally because a different black man was not convicted in the murder of a white policeman.

Hell, using your example, as recently as 1964 an african american was lynched for flirting with white women. That's withing many people here's lifetime. There are people in the US, alive, active, voting and in their mid 70s who were alive and actively supporting lynchings at that time. Similarly, there are people alive today who remember being 20 years old and afraid of being lynched for no reason. Pretending this is something that's way in our past is being ignorant.

victor809 wrote:

Now if I only said that Tail spinner. I am directly saying you are a racist for trying to spin Trumps usage of the word being OK.

Speyside wrote: