ANATOMY OF A LYNCHING BY ROBERT F. REID-PHARR "The truth of course is that the lynching has never stopped, never been contained. The vulgar policeman, his hands sticky with black blood, is not, however, the most significant actor in the dangerous game that we are playing. The form of George Floyd’s killing perfectly replicates the older, more ‘traditional’ forms seen in lynchings from the early part of the 20th century. Yes, Floyd was another victim of the seemingly unquenchable thirst of white people for the ritual murders of black persons. Yes, in this instance the man with his knee on Floyd’s throat was a white man. We will not be able to end this horror, however, to finish this practice in all of its forms, until we move beyond the expected feint of assigning blame to the easiest of targets." "Again, the American lynching tradition was – and is – decidedly modern. The mob killings of the early 20th century were often announced in newspapers days before the event, drawing crowds of thousands of persons, using newly established roadways and rail lines to reach their destinations. Prizes were systematically removed from the corpses. Testicles, fingers, noses, nipples, toes, eyes, and ears were traded among revelers and then displayed in shops, and then often held in white families for generations. Even more importantly, photographs of the victims’ remains were taken then turned into postcards that were mailed throughout the United States. For their part, African American newspapers reported on lynchings widely and news of the atrocities spread with alacrity throughout our communities. When I say then that we exist in lynching culture I mean to implicate both my reader – and myself – in that fact. We (Americans, Germans, blacks, whites, indeed the whole of the planet) watch and rewatch George Floyd’s being killed because watching black men being killed is what we always do." "Strangely, then, I will end on a hopeful note. Perhaps the promise of this moment of fear and rage is that at least a few more of us will come to recognize that our society cannot sustain much more of the bloodletting. If we are to survive we will have to find a way to move past the culture of death that has been so productive in both US and European culture. We have got to find the courage to look past our fantasies of a cleansing apocalypse in order to imagine a future wide enough, generous enough, and alive enough to greet us all."