Yesterday, I watched some of the Michael Cohen hearings. Amongst other things, some law makers, cited their Christian faith while discussing the truth, the law and the significance of racism within the current administration. Racism turned into a spectacle.
This photo was of a spectacle lynching. Amongst other citizens, Christians just leaving church were in attendance displaying their views on racism. Calling it the truth and it was the law. Photographs were taken as advertisement for the next spectacle lynching. To incite horror and fear.
This is the last day of Black History Month. Patrick Campbell’s image of the American flag is brutal. It’s a hard truth. Yet one to be dealt with. Looked at without blinking. African Americans flinch, but we don’t get to blink. Lynching is the forgotten legacy that lives within our DNA.
At the National Museum for Peace and Justice, EJI (Equal Justice Initiative) founder, Bryan Stevenson, remembered and memorialized those who perished in the 4,400 lynchings that took place in the U.S. from 1877 to 1950.
In the 400th year since the first slave ship arrived, we are still having conversations about the value of our bodies, our voices, our souls, our spirit and our freedom. Racism and white supremacy are evil. Their existence is an invitation to all forms of domestic terrorism. Systemic injustice terrorism. You’re not a child of God – terrorism.
Lynching had the right to kill simply because of a Black body’s inconvenient existence. Racism says your humanity is offensive and is making a spectacle of itself.
deborah masten 