September 25, 2024
Marcellus Williams was lynched yesterday, (“Missouri executes Marcellus Williams, despite prosecutor’s objections,” by Kim Bellware, The Washington Post, 9/25/24). Just because there are no grisly photos of a charred body hanging by a rope in the woods doesn’t mean that the murder of Marcellus Williams by the state of Missouri was not a lynching. Just because we don’t have photos of white families gathered around his corpse grinning and taking fingers as souvenirs doesn’t mean that those responsible for his death are any less gleeful.
It is clear that Missouri Governor Mike Parson, state Attorney General, Andrew Bailey and U.S. Supreme Court Justices Roberts, Alito, Coney Barrett, Gorsuch, Kavanaugh and Thomas are no less racist and indifferent to Constitutional guarantees of due process than Justice Roger Taney who wrote in the Dred Scott decision that Black people had “no rights which the white man was bound to respect.” Clearly, all that matters to these people is the power to indulge the bloodlust for Black lives.
They are no different than Trump and J.D. Vance, whose relentless assaults on the innocent, lawful Haitian residents of Springfield, Ohio, have destabilized the entire city and left Haitian residents fearing for their lives. These people want Black people dead and they will abandon facts and spread vile, dehumanizing lies to accomplish that goal.
Sadly, these sentiments are hardly contained to Republican officials, as evidenced by the case of the white student at Gettysburg College who carved the word, “n—ger” into the chest of his lone Black teammate on the school’s swim team, (“A student has left Gettysburg College after a racial slur was etched onto a student’s chest, officials say,” by Lauren Mascarenhas and Paradise Afshar, CNN.com). Or consider that, in a race for the presidency between an obviously impaired, racist criminal who lacks intellect or impulse control, or the Black and South Asian Vice President who has dedicated her life to public service, 52% of white voters choose the racist (Source: Poll: Newly popular Harris builds momentum, challenging Trump for the mantle of change,” NBCNews.com).
Even though the theme of Kamala Harris’s campaign is “freedom,” for Trump, Vance, and the 52% of white Americans who support them, the definition of freedom is not the ability to control your own body, choose who you love, or pursue life, liberty and happiness. For them, freedom means the ability to murder, maim, and humiliate Black people with impunity. They will welcome fascism with open arms to keep it. 41 days.