Mediaboss Marketing

Sign Up Today and Support Local Journalism

Enjoy more articles from Madison's Most Trusted Information Source. Subscribers can log in for unlimited digital access

Dear Editor: In response to Dave Zweifel's "Plain Talk: The latest proof the world has been turned upside down: Rand Paul's objection to an anti-lynching bill":

Lynching is still not a federal hate crime in this country due to the objections that one senator, Rand Paul, had to the bill. His argument is that the definition of lynching is too broad. He says the breadth of the definition both cheapens the issue of lynching and could lead to miscarriages of justice by sentencing those tried to 10 years in prison for inflicting only minor injuries.

To require a threshold of how effectively a hate crime is carried out is to misunderstand the purpose and precedent of hate crimes. Hate crimes are about intent and motive. Indeed, this is the power of its legal status and what would differentiate this crime in many ways from murder and attempted murder. Ten and 20-year sentences for hate-based death threats and arson attempts are common.

Rand Paul's argument that you need to be lynched enough to use the term seems a textbook double-standard and a sinister example of the system telling Black people, "it's not that bad," "stop complaining," "get over it."

Confusing this double-standard slightly is that cross burning is a hate crime with origins tied up in much of the same white-on-black racial terror as lynching. Louie Revette was just sentenced to 11 years in federal prison in November 2019 for a cross burning carried out near the homes of African American residents. It seems we have managed to appropriately criminalize cross burning, but not the act its threatening presence implies.

Original post:
Annette Ritchie: Objection to anti-lynching bill sets a sinister double standard - Madison.com