The 'Modern-Day Lynching' Hoax — and the Elephant in the Room

[SVPete]

The 'Modern-Day Lynching' Hoax — and the Elephant in the Room

https://townhall.com/columnists/larryelder/2026/09/17/the-modern-day-lynching-hoax-and-the-elephant-in-the-room-n2683104

Nearly 60 Democratic members of Congress signed a letter to sound an alarm: black Americans are being found hanging, including some from trees, in a wave of possible "modern-day lynchings."

Every suspicious death deserves investigation. But history is not evidence. What are the facts?

Demartravion "Trey" Reed, 21, was found hanging at Delta State University in Cleveland, Mississippi. The medical examiner found no foul play and ruled the death suicide. His family confirmed that his girlfriend said Reed sent suicidal texts the previous night.

In Raleigh, North Carolina, a 32-year-old black man was found hanging downtown. Video showed him acting alone with a cord. His mother said he suffered mental health problems.

Juliana Nzita, 16, was found on church property in Charlotte. Investigators found no defensive wounds, assault, foul play or outside involvement.

Justice Kai James, 21, was found hanging at a Job Corps center in Albany, Georgia. Authorities called it suicide.

Kyle Bassinga, 21, was found hanging in Cobb County; video showed him entering the woods alone. Authorities called it suicide.

To'Nea Nicole Miller, 27, was found hanging in Miami's Gwen Cherry Park. Authorities called it suicide.

Jerard "Jay" Jackson, 28, was found near a trail in Rothbury, Michigan. Authorities called it suicide.

Tasia Fortune, 29, was found hanging behind an abandoned house in Jackson, Mississippi. Her death was ruled homicide. Police arrested Jarques Ratliff, a 51-year-old black man who knew her. His motive is unknown.

[RonE]

The left has been screaming about race since LBJ. democrat feel-good policies, empty promises, and 60+ years later, it's worse than ever. Thank you democrat leaders ( who knew what they were doing) . And the regular dem voters who still value their own good intentions far more than actual results.   
 Some more than others, but you all suck.

[SVPete]

Are Lynchings Really Happening?

https://archive.is/KVbgl
NYT Opinion Column

Since 2024, to judge from news reports, there have been at least 10 Black people found hanged in public in the United States. Eight of these cases have been officially ruled suicides or are being treated as such given no signs of foul play. In neither of the other two has a white suspect been named.

But many people harbor suspicions. Civil rights lawyers, pastors and family members (as well as myriad commentators on social media) have speculated that these deaths were lynchings — homicides perpetrated by whites to sow terror in Black communities.

And now Congress is getting involved. Representative Ayanna Pressley, Democrat of Massachusetts, cited those 10 recent deaths in a letter this month that called for a federal investigation into all hanging deaths of Black people in the country. (She also cited a report of 70 “modern-day lynchings” between 2000 and 2025, though the report uses “lynching” broadly to encompass a wide range of deaths, most of which do not involve hanging.)

Pressley’s letter, which was signed by 58 other Democrats in Congress ...
...
But what Pressley and others are suggesting is different: that today, white people are hanging Black people for the purpose of terrorizing Black communities, and that local authorities are consistently overlooking it or covering it up.
In the cases Pressley’s letter cites, there is often good reason to think otherwise. Consider a few examples:

In 2024, Javion Magee, a 21-year-old Black truck driver, was found dead in North Carolina with a rope around his neck, dangling from a tree. There is surveillance video of Magee buying the rope.

In 2025, Demartravion Reed, a 21-year-old Black student at Delta State University in Mississippi, was discovered hanged from a tree on campus. Reed had sent his girlfriend suicidal text messages the night before.

In the case of Tasia Fortune, a 29-year-old woman who was found hanged from a tree in Mississippi last month, two people have now been arrested in connection with her death — but they are both Black men, which runs counter to the idea that these cases are reanimations of old-school racism.

... But in the face of the evidence we have so far, and given the incendiary nature of the claim, why would anyone say that the United States is experiencing a “national crisis” of lynchings?

One reason is a stylized wariness that Black Americans are often taught as a kind of wisdom — to be ever on guard that the bad old days could return at any moment.

Another reason is a belief that Black people don’t hang themselves because of the fraught historical associations with the act. “It is very uncommon for young Black men to commit suicide, let alone by hanging,” Raymond Winbush, a psychologist who has treated hundreds of Black men and boys, told The Washington Post.

“That’s not the way we do” is how Black Americans often put it in conversation. But we must ask, with all due compassion: Suppose it is? The cases in question are few in number. To say something is uncommon is to grant that it does happen sometimes.

Many were skeptical that Sandra Bland, a Black activist incarcerated in Texas after a contentious traffic stop, hanged herself in her jail cell in 2015. However, after the F.B.I. investigated the case, few now dispute that, tragically, she did. Surveillance video recorded a Black man, Malcolm Harsch, 38, hanging himself in Victorville, Calif., in 2020.

A sad truth about humanity is that racism will never be utterly eradicated. That does not mean it should not be answered and fought, but at the same time, viewing all life through a lens of race is an expression of racism.