Reaction Paper for Strange Fruit: an Overview of Lynching in America

590 Words3 Pages
Kianna M AMH 2091 Section 005 Strange Fruit: An Overview of Lynching in America After reading Strange Fruit: An Overview of Lynching in America, I could not help but feel a wave of discuss come over me. In the article, Hobbs discusses the practice of lynching in Southern America. What started off as a “type of vigilante justice,” emerged into an inhumane form of torture towards the African American community (90). Thus, one cannot help but ponder as to why this injustice flourished for as long as it did? As if being black in America was not enough to get you into trouble in the south, lynch laws and Jim Crow laws put into perspective of how racially inferior African Americans were presumed to be as opposed to their white counter parts; and used to reestablish a white social and political power (90 – 92). The simplest misdeeds such as the thought of a black man wanting a white woman in any sexual way was reason enough to get lynched. Various other reasons include “attempting to vote, unpopularity, self-defense, or testifying against a white man.” For black males, however, “winking, looking directly into the eyes, failing to distance himself, or whistling at a white female” were considered especially heinous. Black men were portrayed as these animalistic savages who wanted their precious white woman’s purity. Black women, on the other hand, were viewed as loose harlots who were sexually driven; basically saying that us as black woman wanted these white southern men to rape us. However, the irony of it all is that white women were the ones pursuing black men and white men were the actual rapists and murderers. The worst part of it all is that none of the people who committed those vile acts were ever prosecuted. White men have been raping black woman and killing black people since the Atlantic Slave Trade and more frequently as the years
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