Lynching parties

Barack Obama is a bigger man than I. I had a visceral reaction to Bill O'Reilly's comments about Michelle Obama--that he doesn't "want to go on a lynching party against Michelle Obama unless there's evidence..."

It's not political correctness to say that you can't responsibly talk about lynching an African American, even as a joke, even in the course of ostensibly defending her from warrantless attacks. Go here to see a picture of what lynching was. It is a graphic and upsetting photo, but it reflects a reality in American history.

I think Americans forget the extent of the terrorism that Whites imposed on Blacks during the long century from Reconstruction to Civil Rights. Professor Jack Chin has pointed out that after the Civil War, African Americans were actually a majority of the voters in some Southern states, and a controlling plurality of the electorate in others. In order to suppress not a minority but a majority of the electorate, extreme measures were necessary. A conservative estimate of the number of Blacks lynched between 1880 and 1964 (!) is 3,445.

White law enforcement officers and leading citizens supported these murders with impunity. Here are links to more pictures and other information. African American sensitivity and sometimes hostility to police is grounded in lessons learned over many generations.

Obviously I don't think O'Reilly really wants to actually lynch anyone. It was unfortunate and highly insensitive metaphor for the kind of campaigns that he occasionally launches into. But if I'm Barack Obama, I'm outraged, my blood is boiling, I'm tempted to respond along these lines: "HOW DARE YOU! How dare you twist the words of this wonderful, loving, and patriotic--yes, patriotic--woman, and make her out to be an "America-hater" of some kind. And then to say that with the right kind of evidence you would launch a "lynching party" on my wife...this is not something that I can overlook or ignore. This is loathsome and reprehensible....." I'm actually not that good at outrage, so you can fill in the rest.

Would this be a smart thing to do? I don't know. Generally bringing up Black racial victimization is a bad idea for Obama. At least some White people will always respond defensively, saying (or thinking) "Why is he so mad about lynching? Nobody I know has ever lynched anyone. That's the distant past. It has nothing to do with racial inequality today."

On the other hand, he risks both allowing the anti-American meme to fester   (which it will to some extent in extreme conservative circles anyway, nothing he can or should do about that) AND the Michael Dukakis moment, where, when given a hypothetical about his own wife being murdered, Dukakis responded calmly with a legalistic defense of his opposition to the death penalty--and demonstrated that he had no soul. The key is to frame this as a defense of his wife rather than as a racial issue. It would also suck some oxygen out of any attention the Clinton campaign is trying to get.

But he's the candidate trying to catch up in Ohio and Texas, so it's a moment when he doesn't want to get too distracted either, and the campaign's responses have been clear enough. A Black candidate can't risk showing too much passion, or it will be seen as a lack of self-control. So perhaps they are handling this correctly.

But it makes me weep.