Thanks to Pfeifer we now know that the lynching of the post-Civil War decades rested in part on massive pylons of popular sovereignty, white supremacy, and class preservation and advancement. Those sturdy foundations, in the eyes of lynching apologists, raised extralegal punishments from the trash heap of necessary evils to the level of positive goods. Realizing the importance of these foundations, we can better understand why the practice was so difficult to eradicate and why elements of lynching’s DNA still remain in our criminal “justice” system.
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1 comment:
This is horrifying. How could lynching be conceived as any form of justice, rough or otherwise. As for the "apologists" for lynching, no doubt one could still find those who think that the Holocaust was a good idea, but so what? Is one supposed to take their opinions seriously, as one side of a legitimate debate? White supremacy as one of the "sturdy foundations" of the Republic?
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