It was just a matter of time before someone brought it up, but no, it's got nothing to do with race

[moonbladem]

Texas Judge Suggests Lynching Black Suspect, Denies It’s About Race

“Time for a tree and a rope,” Burnet County Judge James Oakley wrote on Facebook.

Comments

[hudebnik]

Technically, "lynching" doesn't mean "hanging someone from a tree", it means "removing a prisoner from government custody," usually in order to punish the prisoner without going through the trouble of a trial and due process. Which may be what the judge wants to happen -- there's certainly precedent for judges and law enforcement officers turning a blind eye to lynching in order to get a troublesome prisoner out of their way quickly -- but it's not what he said.

[meadowphoenix]

Why did you feel the need to be pedantic about an occurrence which has a cultural history and definition which makes this technicality irrelevant?

[silver_apples]

Considering he was calling for the suspect's death before the trial, that he suggested hanging when Texas law requires lethal injection for executions, and he suggested a tree which implies the hanging would happen outside the jail, I think this still qualifies as "lynching".

[wrestlingdog]

When on God's green earth has anyone used that definition rather than stringing someone up?

[mhfromnh]

time for the urn.

[shortsweetcynic]

He apologized and called his language “unfortunate,” but denied that it contained any racial undertones.

hey hey hey

guess what

words mean things.

and because they meant things regardless of your intent, you don't get to say something flagrantly, blatantly, sickeningly racist like that and just say "oh, but i didn't mean it to be racist / i'm not racist / whaargarbl". fuck off with that shit, it's worse than "i'm sorry if you were offended" and it is RAMPANT right now.

i'm glad, at the very least, that in both instances i'm aware of there has been serious pushback and/or consequences, but jesus christ. staaaaahp.

[executivehpfan]

Aaaand the government of my home state continues to be undisputed worst

Of course there were no racist overtones, how very dare we even suggest such a thing? -_-

[ladycyndra]

Right? I hate my state sometimes and shit like this is why a lot of people want us GONE from the country.

[zinnia_rose]

All that's missing from the racist asshat bingo card is "if you thought it was racist then you're the REAL racists!"