re: #229 HappyWarrior

Saw this on facebook:
Image: 559518_526276158005_180400524_30367291_1057456311_n.jpg
Makes me very angry.

Which reminds me. RS McCain on the lynching of Emmett Till:

eschatonblog.com

[W]hatever happened in that grocery store, it was something more than Till merely “whistling at a white woman.” Please note that the store was also the home of Bryant’s family.

[…]

He had gone into the Bryants’ place of business — into their family home, no less — and insulted the wife of the proprietor, had made “lewd advances,” as Carolyn Bryant testified under oath, and then boasted about this to all his friends.

Roy Bryant’s response to this provocation was brutal and criminal, certainly. Whatever the opposite of “railroaded” might be, that would be a fair description of the acquittal of Bryant and Milam. But in what sense can Emmett Till’s mother justify describing her son as “a sacrifical lamb”? And, in the larger view, how has Emmett Till come to be a demigod in the civil rights pantheon? What perverted sort of “social justice” includes the right to enter a man’s home and insult his wife?

[…]

I am not justifying anything. I was trying to make two major points:

1. Till was not killed merely for “whistling at a white woman.” That phrase has attached itself to Till’s name, suggesting that he was killed as the result of some casual encounter on the street — which is simply not true.

2. Till’s killers were the husband and brother-in-law of the woman whom Till insulted. It wasn’t the Klan. It wasn’t a racist mob. It wasn’t some evil redneck sheriff. This was a personal crime, rather than a public crime.

To repeat what I have said in earlier posts: Emmett Till was not killed at random for the crime of being black. He was not hanged on the public square for advocating nonviolent social change. He was kidnapped and murdered by two men who felt that he had personally wronged them.
[…]

Was Emmett Till wrongly murdered? Of course. But thousands of Americans are murdered every year. Being a victim of murder, however, does not qualify one for sainthood.

[…]

Was Till’s killing racially motivated? Certainly, at least in part — just as Till’s initial action toward Carolyn Bryant was racially motivated. Till thought he could impress his relatives and friends by defying the customs of rural Mississippi. He succeeded too well. Roy Bryant returned home to find that Till’s insulting behavior toward his wife was the talk of the community. Not merely was this a challenge to Bryant’s personal honor, but to the peculiar community standards of that place and time. Roy Bryant either had to do something about Till, or become a pariah and/or a laughingstock in his community.

Now, it is likely that no would wish to return to the community standards and customs that apertained in rural Mississippi in 1955, when the Bryant brothers could kill Emmett Till and be judged not guilty by a jury of their peers. But Emmett Till’s insult to Carolyn Bryant was a personal wrong, and the murder of Emmett Till was a very personal murder. He was not a martyr for “civil rights,” unless you consider it a civil right to insult women.

Sounds familiar?