Talk:Lynching

Breaking up the article by region

I've been thinking that you guys are right that this thing is fairly painful to read and navigate. I think that copying relevent info over to regional versions of the page and then linking them from this one would be a good idea. I think most of these will already have a page, like America, but if not it shouldn't be too difficult to make a bunch of new pages. Leaving just two lines of basic overall numbers for each region on this page might be a good idea, that way you can scroll down it and get an overview - then click to each page for the details on the subject. What do you guys think? Tiggy The Terrible (talk) 23:26, 25 January 2022 (UTC)

Well. I had a go at porting it across. Please take a look at the Lynching in the United States page to see what you think. Tiggy The Terrible (talk) 19:15, 26 January 2022 (UTC)

No, sorry. I totally agree that the article was too long and unwieldy. But: The longer version had at least the advantage that the fact that lynching played a central role in maintaining White supremacy in the U.S. South was mentioned. Lynchings didn't "happen", they were often consciously incited by members of the White élite, something that many people in the U.S. have never forgotten. --Rsk6400 (talk) 19:38, 26 January 2022 (UTC)

I restored the text and then removed some of what I thought least relevant. But I admit that the rest is still too long. --Rsk6400 (talk) 08:21, 27 January 2022 (UTC)

@Rsk6400: Uh, I'm not sure I follow your explanation. We have a separate article on Lynchings in the United States. I'm not clear at all on why the general Lynchings page needs a whopping 2000 word essay about the same topic planted in the middle of it. Did you drop part of the article into your response by mistake? I'm very confused by it. Tiggy The Terrible (talk) 18:11, 27 January 2022 (UTC)

Few people click on links. So, moving content to a different article and then link it has the effect that few people read that content. That's why I think the most important statements should still be kept in this article. And the political context of most lynchings that targeted African Americans was White supremacy. That's extremely important, even today you cannot understand U.S. politics without knowing the horribly racist history. The other thing is WP:BALASP: E.g. the section on India covers some 20 lynchings, the U.S. section covers more than 4000. So the U.S. section has to be longer than the India section. As you may have seen from my last edits, I also want to reduce the U.S. section. I won't oppose further reducing it, but I believe some core content should be kept. --Rsk6400 (talk) 19:16, 27 January 2022 (UTC)

I appreciate that there's a lot of context to get over, but the article itself is already heavily about the American perspective and the USA section itself is waaay too long. Isn't there some way we could condense that a little? It seems like it's trying to give the entire history, but it's fairly random about the bits it picks. Or, at least, the original version was. I've seriously no idea what the section about Californian federal law was doing in there, for example. If we could maybe chop that down by half, at least, I think that would be a fairly major improvement. I mean, it looks like a fairly 'in brief' thing now - but it's seriously about 1/3 of the length of the article, and there are other countries too. Tiggy The Terrible (talk) 19:28, 27 January 2022 (UTC)

I agree. Rsk6400 (talk) 07:18, 28 January 2022 (UTC)

To be honest, I think the more stuff that's there, the less likely people are to read the main page as well as they'll think it's just a retred. I think we really should just move 90% of it. Tiggy The Terrible (talk) 21:34, 28 January 2022 (UTC)

@TiggyTheTerrible @Rsk6400 The country sections appeared to be grouped inconsistently. I went ahead and sorted them. As both of you contributed to the organization by region, I figured I should let you know. Edit: Apologies if this is the wrong place to post. Quirk4 (talk) 21:53, 13 October 2022 (UTC)

@Quirk4 Thanks this page is terribly organised, so anything that helps. Tiggy The Terrible (talk) 14:25, 15 October 2022 (UTC)

No problem, thanks. Rsk6400 (talk) 16:03, 18 October 2022 (UTC)

@TiggyTheTerrible: I already stated that I don't agree with removing the part about White supremacy. And I also mentioned WP:BALASP. Why did you remove it again, without even giving an explanation ? --Rsk6400 (talk) 14:33, 1 February 2022 (UTC)

Ah, damn, I'm sorry. I misremembered what you said as the other guy saying it. I am sorry, I may have messed up here. I moved it, and then got bust writing out a much shorter and more condensed version of the section for this article - but it got late, so I just saved it into a word doc and forgot about it. if you want I can show what I have here once I get back to my PC. I probably should have just copied it over rather than copying and pasting. Tiggy The Terrible (talk) 14:47, 1 February 2022 (UTC)

I don't honestly know why I saved the lynching page as is. Sorry. I might have been closing the browser very late at night and it asked me if I wanted to leave without saving and I guess I must have just done it. Sorry. I'll try to be more careful. Tiggy The Terrible (talk) 14:59, 1 February 2022 (UTC)

No problem, thanks for the explanation. If you already prepared another text, feel free to replace the old one, other editors (including me) will of course accept it, amend it, revert it and / or discuss it. Rsk6400 (talk) 17:10, 1 February 2022 (UTC)

@Rsk6400: Okay, so; I think that what we should probably do is have one big paragraph of stuff outlining why lynching happened in America and maybe leave the civil rights part for the main page. It's tempting to infodump everything, but - honestly - I think people are much more likely to dig into that big article if it's not just an 'extended cut' repeat of this one. So what I have so far is: " Mob violence arose as a means of enforcing White supremacy[23] and it frequently verged on systematic political terrorism. After the American Civil War, secret white supremacist terrorist groups such as the Ku Klux Klan (KKK) instigated extrajudicial assaults and killings due to a perceived loss of white power in America. Especially in the South.[17][18][19][20][21] Mobs usually alleged crimes for which they lynched Black people in order to instil fear. In the late 19th century, however, journalist Ida B. Wells showed that many presumed crimes were either exaggerated or had not even occurred.[22] The magnitude of the extralegal violence which occurred during election campaigns, to prevent blacks from voting, reached epidemic proportions; leading the historian William Gillette to label it guerrilla warfare."[17][18][19][20][21] The ideology behind lynching, directly connected with the denial of political and social equality, was stated forthrightly in 1900 by United States Senator Benjamin Tillman, who was previously governor of South Carolina: We of the South have never recognized the right of the negro to govern white men, and we never will. We have never believed him to be the equal of the white man, and we will not submit to his gratifying his lust on our wives and daughters without lynching him.[24][25] For examples and a specific timeline, please see the main page for lynchings in America." I think this pretty much covers it. I don't think we need to have a list of examples, and I'm wary of having one as people are going to see it and think they should add to it. I didn't even see Emmit Till on there, and I think that's a pretty awful omission due to its importance. But that way, everything stays on the main page and there's a full timeline to read. What do you think? Tiggy The Terrible (talk) 18:26, 1 February 2022 (UTC)

I'm not sure which parts of the existing text you want to replace, so I suggest you just go ahead and do the edit you propose. It's also easier to compare two versions using the tools of "View history". One problem: For examples and a specific timeline, please see the main page for lynchings in America - I didn't look it up, but I have a feeling that it's against WP:MOS. Regarding I don't think we need to have a list of examples, I totally agree with you and the rationale you gave. Another thing: Emmett Till is mentioned in section "Anti-lynching legislation". Rsk6400 (talk) 20:24, 2 February 2022 (UTC)

Alright, then - here we go! I have no idea what section that would be under in the manual, so I'll just leave it out. Tiggy The Terrible (talk) 09:14, 3 February 2022 (UTC)

Done @Rsk6400:! What do you think? Tiggy The Terrible (talk) 09:23, 3 February 2022 (UTC)

Above you said, If we could maybe chop that down by half, at least, a little later it was I think we really should just move 90% of it. That looks to me like wanting to shorten it just for sake of shortening it. I already referred to WP:BALASP above. More important: When cutting down this text we cannot just cut away important parts like the end of lynchings or the White Southern resistance against anti-lynching legislation. U.S. lawmakers defended lawlessness, yes ! We cannot remove it just because it was written in the second part of the section. If you want people to read Lynching in the United States, then you should also pay attention to what you are doing there. You recently inserted at least two pictures that were already there, and I still didn't check the text you inserted for duplicates. Rsk6400 (talk) 14:25, 3 February 2022 (UTC)

Oh? Did I? Sorry! I'm new at this. So did you think that was enough on white supremacists? If so, I'm happy to do something similar to the second section on the civil rights movement. My main concern here is really that I want people to read the main article rather than the in brief part, so keeping things short and sweet here is best. especially as this article has much room for expansion. Tiggy The Terrible (talk) 17:00, 3 February 2022 (UTC)

I think that the first part is OK now, though I'm not sure about the lynchings of non-Black people that you dropped. Well, let's see if other editors object. Regarding the civil rights section: Go ahead. Regarding reading the other article: I looked at certain sections, but didn't read the whole article, because it's far too long. Rsk6400 (talk) 15:31, 4 February 2022 (UTC)

Wiki Education assignment: Historic Site Interpretation

This article was the subject of a Wiki Education Foundation-supported course assignment, between 10 January 2022 and 8 May 2022. Further details are available on the course page. Student editor(s): Peyt775, Apollo4682 (article contribs).

Leading image

Whilst I understand Wikipedia does not censor, and that lynching itself plus its history is henous and disturbing, the fact that an image of a hanged black man (whos face can be seen, but is unnamed) pops up even when just scrolling over the link for 'lynching' frankly puts a very sour taste in my mouth. I feel these kinds of images, whilst historically important, should be kept further down the article, not least so if someone not familiar with the term hovers for a definition or an introduction, such as younger people researching US history or racism in the USA for the first time they don't see surprise snuff.

Pop-up previews for other potentially 'unsavoury' or 'offensive' articles, such as those relating to sexual acts (cunnilingus, sexual intercourse) have artistic depictions, as do other forms of execution/killing like murder, massacre, hanging, stoning, death by burning and even articles on similar violent hatecrimes like pogrom doesn't show a large image of dead Jews; other crimes against the person are depicted with statistical maps on the pop-ups such as rape. The only exception I've found is electrocution which shows a man with a covered face and with no obvious signs of being dead nor alive or in explicit pain (although he's obviously not comfortable, but thats only implied with knowledge of the apparatus). Other articles from List of methods of capital punishment don't show pop-up images and the lead images on the article's page is usually historical art or images of the apparatus used.

I propose this image is replaced with either: an illustration of these acts of violence, an image or depiction of a lynching before the actual hanging occurs, an abstract representation such as a map of lynchings per US state or an empty noose on a tree (or simply removing the covering image).

If the image is not replaced, I at least request that it doesn't show up when you hover over the links on other articles.

The images on Lynching in the United States are frankly more disturbing and I feel the same way as above, but at least that article is only likely to linked after this general article so one may know what to expect, plus the images have specific historical context, names and locations, unlike this one. Jackass cooper (talk) 15:59, 9 June 2023 (UTC)

Per MOS:SHOCK, "Lead images should be of least shock value; an alternative image that accurately represents the topic without shock value should always be preferred." If we can find a less shocking image that still represents the topic well, I'd support it. Firefangledfeathers (talk / contribs) 16:11, 9 June 2023 (UTC)

Non-lethal “lynchings”

Some media in India are now using the term “lynching” to refer to an incident in Manipur where a mob of men from the dominant ethnic group gathered outside a courthouse, demanded the release of several minority women who had been arrested for protesting, and then had the women stripped naked and subjected to a mass sexual assault/gang rape. While the women were not actually killed, the event (which was captured on video) does share a lot of similarities with lynchings as US citizens understand the term. The mob members also killed male relatives of the women who were trying to stop the assaults. See: [1] [2] I wonder if there should be a section on this page for such “rape lynchings” (another attempted example from India is [3]) or whether it would be a better fit for the See Also section. 2604:2D80:6984:3800:0:0:0:AD8C (talk) 19:56, 1 August 2023 (UTC)

Given the deaths of relatives, I would classify this violence as a lynching. Moreover, since the main purpose of lynching is social control, the Manipur incidents certainly fit in this category. They would certainly merit an article and a mention, here. Just my 2 cents, but still. Kleuske (talk) 20:21, 1 August 2023 (UTC)