tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2304235862479840318.post5950907282523458407..comments2024-01-08T04:16:25.601-08:00Comments on Ché (What You Call Your) Pasa: On the Incidents in New York and at Union Square YesterdayChé Pasahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01926630891287949373noreply@blogger.comBlogger2125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2304235862479840318.post-15345545442381811022012-03-25T20:46:11.999-07:002012-03-25T20:46:11.999-07:00I remember writing a paper on lynching when I was ...I remember writing a paper on lynching when I was in college, and Ida B. Wells was a primary source. She opened a lot of eyes to what was going on and its utter foulness. I've seen estimates of more than 10,000 lynchings of blacks between Reconstruction and the mid-1920's, but blacks weren't the only ones lynched. <br /><br />One of the first plays I produced -- a long time ago now -- was an original script about what was called "the last lynching in California." <a href="http://www.metroactive.com/metro/10.03.07/cover-0740.html" rel="nofollow">It took place</a> in the main plaza of San Jose in 1933. <br /><br />Two white men, accused of kidnapping and murdering the son of a local department store owner, <a href="http://youtu.be/0Ug1YWzJwis" rel="nofollow">were brutally lynched</a> by a mob that included many of the town's most prominent citizens. <br /><br />Lynching was pretty common in California up to that point; and in this case, the Governor himself came to the defense of the lynchers. <br /><br />These days, most Californians have no idea nor any memory that any such things ever happened. In California, the victims were mostly Asian, Native American, Chicano, and not infrequently poor whites. Blacks were not immune from lynching in California, but there were relatively few in the state at the time.<br /><br />The era when Ida B. Wells began crusading against lynching was a time when Jim Crow was being consolidated and institutionalized, and not just in the South. Crackpot "race science" was behind a lot of it. Add to that the nature of mobs, and the volatile mixture is not easily controllable. It took decades and decades for shame to start controlling the mobs, and the visual consequences of WWII to set aside the fantasies of "race science." <br /><br />The history of lynching and all that goes with it is yet another blot on America's exceptionalism.Ché Pasahttps://www.blogger.com/profile/01926630891287949373noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2304235862479840318.post-49398031920334823392012-03-25T19:16:00.904-07:002012-03-25T19:16:00.904-07:00Carl Davidson had an interesting piece about Ida B...Carl Davidson had an interesting piece about Ida B. Wells and lynching. Seems as though Wells didn't focus on lynching until three of her friends were lynched in the Curve Riot. Interesting reading - I had no idea of how frequent lynchings took place nor did I know the reasons behind the lynchings. Bichler and Nitzan make more and more sense ...Alcuinnoreply@blogger.com