Will the U.S. Right-wing Bring Racism, and Thus Lynching, to a Fever Pitch Once Again?

By David Starr

 

During around the 1890s and 1900s racism in the United States not only increased, it became barbaric. 

 

After the Union won the Civil War, there was a period of reconstruction to try and free the ancestors of African Americans from the remnants of slavery. African Americans could finally declare themselves citizens of the U.S. with constitutional and political rights.

 

But the backlash was inevitable. White supremacists proceeded to go on a racist rampage, (see chapter 2), thus making the benefits of Reconstruction weaker or just temporary. The period from the 1890s to the 1900s was in particular very dangerous for African Americans. 

 

With white racism at a fever pitch, supremacists used both verbal and physical violence to try to intimidate and/or kill, quite a number of Blacks. If we count going beyond 1900, the deaths of blacks by lynching were combined with other lynchings of people of color to total 4,467. Of that amount, 3,265 were black. 

 

Fast-forward to the present. Right-wing racism has been on the increase which includes cases of lynchings. Particularly since the Reagan regime, the right-wing began to try and reassert itself. Now, the racism is a little more out in the open, although there is still those on the right staying in the closet, Sometimes, anyway. To speak openly using racist diatribes is still a political liability.

 

But there are signs that those among the right are becoming more direct, putting white racism back on a similar footing to the aftermath of Reconstruction. Demartravion “Trey” Reed is the latest victim (or one of them). 

 

Reed was a student at Delta State University in Cleveland, Mississippi. Reed’s body was found hanging from a tree on the university’s campus. The Sabby Sabs show had a segment that detailed the incident.

 

Although the body didn’t sustain physical violence, there is still the probability that Reed was a victim of white racism. It follows a pattern whereby lynching is still an option for white racists. Think Nazis, fascists, etc. Nowadays they have reasserted themselves as the agenda of the right gets uglier. And what also points to a lynching is the fact that it happened in Mississippi, which has had a history of lynching African Americans. So, an educated guess that Reed was lynched isn’t too far-fetched.

 

An autopsy was performed on Reed’s body by the Mississippi State Medical Examiner’s Office and concluded that, yeah, it was a hanging but called a suicide. Considering this is in Mississippi it’s really not surprising it was called a suicide. Again, there is a near consistent history of African Americans being lynched in Mississippi. The Reed incident points to a pattern of that history.

 

Reed’s family has been left confused and concerned because of conflicting accounts and incomplete information of Reed’s death. And this was probably done by Mississippi police with the idea that police in this former slave state tried to cover up deaths of blacks being lynched historically. It sounds like it fits the pattern.

 

Former NFL quarterback Colin Kaepaernick has arranged to pay for an independent autopsy of Reed’s body. Kaepernick probably has suspicions about the results of the first autopsy. As well as Reed’s family.

 

With it being a very dangerous time in the United States, the possibility of further violence against what the right considers as “undesirables” is real. One can look at Charlie Kirk and his fascistic remarks and realize he wasn’t alone in that perverted thinking. Ironically, Kirk died for something he promoted, whether directly or implied.

 

Those among the right have said truly disgusting things about other people. And it looks like they will continue with their words typified by their demented agenda. And, unfortunately, with actions.

 

The right, led by the Trump regime, is dwelling in the past rather than learning from it. They want a new Gilded Age, and other types of barbarism that characterized the period of the 1890s into the 1900s, and further. 

 

With this threat, the opposition must confront it, and ultimately defeat it. It’s not just the United States that’s at stake. It’s the world.    

 

     

 

 

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