Reply #154: I disagree with you that it is being applied "broadly" here. [View All]

[Political Heretic]

I don't like it when the term is applied broadly. In this case, the term is relevant on multiple levels.

-- it is a racially motivated attack
-- it is a mass attack, gang up
-- its purpose was to destroy the life of a black man for entertainment or, if you're being really generous, "infotainment"
-- it was publicly accepted without objection

It is absolutely appropriate to refer to the ganging up of a bunch of white ruling elite and a black man and destroying his past, his legacy, his reputation, his career, his life as a media lynching. Calling it a media lynching by definition distinguishes it from a historical lynching.

But to bury that word in the past as though it can and should never be used to evoke the emotionally painful history of racist group attacks on blacks for entertainment is absurd.

The power of history lies in remembering not just the quantitative events (in this case the murder) but the qualitative motivations behind it - and the similarities between motivations then and now are striking. Thus, it is with great purpose and deliberate point that I call it a media lynching.

The reason the word in particular is appropriate is not because the emotional heartache and tragedy of having your life destroyed in front of the entire world is equivalent to losing your physical life. It's not less than or more than losing your life - it is its own kind of unique horror and injustice.

The reason the word is appropriate is because of the attitude and purpose of those who chose to do it - there's was the attitude of the lynch mob. Exactly the same, just evolved to fit "modern sensibilities" .... so no people with that attitude don't string blanks from trees literally - the just do it figuratively, with the same basic attitude in doing it.