Saturday, May 20, 2023

modern day vigilantes

 


There are so many problems in America today that you might come to the conclusion that the age of vigilantes is a thing of the past. If that is your thought, you would be wrong.

 

Arguably, vigilante justice started to expand during the Reconstruction period, which led to the formation of the Ku Klux Klan in 1865. After the passage of the Ku Klux Klan Act in 1871, the organization saw a decline in membership.

In the early years of the 20th century, the Klan saw a resurgence, and membership in the Klan reached its peak in the 1920’s.

The Great Depression led to another decline in membership, but the Civil Rights era of the 1960’s caused membership to grow again, but far less than the glory years of the 1920’s.

As the article below explains, Klan membership may be smaller than it once was, but it has now been replaced by something called Christian nationalism.

https://tohell-andback.blogspot.com/2023/04/the-klan-is-back.html

One of the key elements of the KKK was lynching, which peaked in the 1920’s. However, lynching existed before that time, and one of its victims was Joseph Smith, the founder of the Mormon religion, who was hanged in 1844.

Between 1900 to 1931, there were 1595 lynchings of African Americans in America. Although the first bill to ban lynching was introduced in 1918, it was not until 2022 that congress finally passed a bill to make it illegal.

https://tohell-andback.blogspot.com/2014/01/

The Senate unanimously passed a bill in March that criminalizes lynching and made  it punishable by up to 30 years in prison. It sailed through the House of Representatives, and President Biden signed it.

While it eased through both chambers of Congress this time with virtually no opposition, the path to passage took more than 100 years and 200 failed attempts.

Under the bill, named the Emmett Till Anti-Lynching Act after the 14-year-old boy from Chicago who was lynched while visiting family in Mississippi, a crime can be prosecuted as a lynching when a hate crime results in a death or injury, said Rep. Bobby Rush, D-Ill., a longtime sponsor of the legislation.

 "Lynching is a longstanding and uniquely American weapon of racial terror that has for decades been used to maintain the white hierarchy," Rush said in a statement Monday evening. "Unanimous Senate passage of the Emmett Till Anti-Lynching Act sends a clear and emphatic message that our nation will no longer ignore this shameful chapter of our history and that the full force of the U.S. federal government will always be brought to bear against those who commit this heinous act.

https://www.npr.org/2022/03/08/1085094040/senate-passes-anti-lynching-bill-and-sends-federal-hate-crimes-legislation-to-bi

Lynching was not confined to the south. The passage of the Homestead Act of 1862 opened up thousands of acres in the west that quickly led to a surge of farms in areas that had previously had not been fenced. This quickly became a source of conflict with cattle ranchers, who were accustomed to free access to the land.

Not all of the victims of lynching were guilty, as exemplified by a book titled “The Ox-bow incident”, which was published in 1940, and made into a movie (starring Henry Fonda) in 1943.

https://tohell-andback.blogspot.com/2013/08/the-ox-bow-incident.html

 

Although it’s tempting to say that vigilante justice is a bi-partisan issue, that it no longer the case, as explained by Jamelle Bouie in a recent New York Times article.

 https://www.nytimes.com/2023/05/16/opinion/neely-penny-perry-rittenhouse-desantis.html?searchResultPosition=1

It’s been nearly three years since the riots and subsequent shooting in Kenosha, Wis., where a gunman — Kyle Rittenhouse, a 17-year-old from nearby Antioch, Ill. — killed two protesters in what a court eventually determined was self-defense.

Among the most troubling aspects of the shooting was the almost jubilant reaction of conservative media to the news that someone had taken the law into his own hands and meted out lethal force. Tucker Carlson praised Rittenhouse as someone who decided “to maintain order when no one else would.” Ann Coulter said she wanted Rittenhouse “as my president.” Marjorie Taylor Greene, then a candidate, called him an “innocent child,” and Representative Thomas Massie of Kentucky praised Rittenhouse for his “incredible restraint.”

Rittenhouse went on, after his acquittal, to become a minor conservative celebrity. He met with Donald Trump at Mar-a-Lago, got a standing ovation at a Turning Point USA conference and earned the praise of the governor of Florida, Ron DeSantis, who said, “Kyle Rittenhouse did what we should want citizens to do in such a situation: step forward to defend the community against mob violence.”

George Zimmerman achieved hero status in 2012, when he killed an unarmed black teenager named Trayvon Martin. Subsequently, Martin’s family successfully sued the homeowner’s association where George Zimmerman worked as a neighborhood watch employee.

The New York City subways made the news in 1984 when Bernhard Goetz shot 4 unarmed black teenagers, and they did it again this past week.

A former US Marine who placed a passenger in a fatal chokehold on the New York subway has appeared in court to be charged with manslaughter.

Daniel Penny, 24, is accused of causing the death of 30-year-old Jordan Neely on 1 May. He did not enter a plea.

 

His lawyers said he could not have known his actions to subdue Mr. Neely would lead to his death.

 

Mr. Neely, who was homeless, was pinned to the ground and restrained for several minutes on the train carriage.

 

He had been shouting at other passengers and asking for money, witnesses said.

Mr. Neely was later found unconscious in the carriage and taken to hospital where he was pronounced dead. His death resulted from compression of the neck, the city's medical examiner ruled.

 

Hands cuffed behind his back, Mr. Penny appeared at Manhattan Criminal Court on Friday to be formally charged and was later released on $100,000 in cash bail.

He must return to court on 17 July or a warrant will be issued for his arrest, the judge said. He must also turn over his passport and seek permission to cross state lines.

 

On the day Mr. Neely died, Mr. Penny was questioned by police and then released.

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-65573879

This incident was eerily similar to the killing of George Floyd in Minneapolis, who died because officer Chauvin knelt on his neck for more than 9 minutes.

Although the actions of Jordan Neely were disturbing, causing his death was not the appropriate response. Sadly, it didn’t take long before Mr. Penny became a celebrity, and his defense fund has already swelled to $2.5 million.

In a polarized America, Daniel Penny becomes a right-wing cause as defense fund tops $2.5M (msn.com)

All of watch in horror on January 6, 2021, as a mob of Trump supporters stormed the United States capitol and some of them were shouting “hang Mike Pence”.

 




To date, more than 900 people have been charged with crimes related to the events of January 6 – and more will follow. You can call it an “insurrection” (because it was), but the more accurate description would be that it is the largest vigilante gathering in this country’s history – and it can never be allowed to happen again.


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