Blog 4

I came into the class not knowing a to of African American History, but I did know a lot about lynching. I knew a decent amount about some of the old individual more famous cases, and I knew a lot about the crowds that gathered. With that being said, the video was very much right on track with what I believed to be true and kind of re-opened the thought process on the subject. No one likes to think about a subject so disgusting, so I think it's important to open a topic with something like this to remind people. I knew it was terrible and a gruesome sight, but it's something one doesn't like to remember in vivid detail, and these pictures really gave me that picture again. I actually have the stomach flu, and watching this really didn't make my stomach feel any better.

As far as the crowds go, this just added to the whole "desensitization" of society theory. It was like people gathering around to watch an event, but it was actually someone getting killed. I watched a discovery channel show on the wild west and they talked a bit about hanging. There was very much a science to it to make sure the kill was quick. The idea of hanging is to break the neck, but if this wasn't done correctly, people often were decapitated, bled to death, suffocated, or other gruesome things. I'm sure the lynchings weren't given much thought, so the sights were certainly quite bloddy and disgusting. People brought their families to these things and I feel that much of what we can see today is partially spurred by stuff like that. Fascination with the blood and gore, such as movies like SAW, show how much our society has been desenticized.