ravi wrote:
>
> Bradford DeLong wrote:
>
> >
> > A lynch mob chases an innocent man, eager to beat and possibly kill him
> > not because of anything he has done but because of the color of his
> > skin. One can say that one understands the sources of their fear and
> > rage. One can regret the upbringing that has given them such
> > a--racist--way of responding to the world. No matter how much literary
> > and sociological imagination one has, only a murderous racist can say
> > that in their place one would join the lynch mob.
> >
Brad, who usually seems to know his history, either doesn't know it here or is deliberately suppressing his own knowledge. Lynching in the South was not primarily conducted on its own by a mindless mob but usually instigated by men whose background more paraalleled that of the gentlement and ladies in the Whitehouse, Defense Dept. & State Dept. than that of the men who constituted the mobs. And as a tradition it was _certainly_ preserved by such men rather than by the men in the mobs who carried out the lynching. In other words, lynching was not rage or prejudice or other passion overflowing the controls of reason; it was a carefully cultivated institution instigated and preserved by the southern ruling class -- gentlemen all, with much more in common with Bush & Powell and Cheney and Gore than with Afghan or Pakistani peasants.
Carrol