Mengzi poses the idea that human nature is inherently good, and that personal reflection will help to cultivate benevolent behavior and ward off evil intentions. Furthermore, he stresses that it is the result of a treacherous environment and the lack of individual effort that a person commits wrongdoings and becomes wicked. The objection to his theories arises in the case of Southern lynchers within the late 19th and early 20th centuries. It is contended that these people, in their attempts to suppress African-American civilians, engaged in terrible activities due to their inability to observe and recognize their actions as morally reprehensible. Mengzi would refute this demurral with the evidence that the lynchers were cultivated in a hostile …show more content…
As such, the lynchers were incapable of perceiving their actions as morally wrong. Mengzi would argue that all people are born with good natures, but those who err are not properly reflecting on their behavior. In comparison, the lynchers also had innate tendencies toward virtue which required personal effort to cultivate. Since they did not make any attempts at refining their virtue, their natural moral impulses became distorted and unrestrained. Despite this, there were also cases where people who were involved in the lynching mobs would look away and feel disgust toward these brutal murders. Mengzi would perhaps postulate that this is the heart feeling pity and rebelling in these evil acts, for “all humans have hearts that are not unfeeling toward others” (Mengzi, p. 45). They had, in their lapse of reflection, lost their inhibitions and turned to lynching as an answer. Mengzi would speculate that even though their morality was implicit in them, they were not offered the necessary “nutrition” for their sprouts to grow in a morally upright direction. The lynchers were not reflecting on their actions; in other words, they could not see the goodness that needed to be done and
Interestingly, the book does not focus solely on the Georgia lynching, but delves into the actual study of the word lynching which was coined by legendary judge Charles B Lynch of Virginia to indicate extra-legal justice meted out to those in the frontier where the rule of law was largely absent. In fact, Wexler continues to analyse how the term lynching began to be used to describe mob violence in the 19th century, when the victim was deemed to have been guilty before being tried by due process in a court of law.
The hypocrisy and double standard that allowed whites to bring harm to blacks without fear of any repercussions had existed for years before the murder Tyson wrote about occurred in May of 1970 (Tyson 2004, 1). Lynching of black men was common place in the south as Billie Holiday sang her song “Strange Fruit” and the eyes of justice looked the other way. On the other side of the coin, justice was brought swiftly to those blacks who stepped out of line and brought harm to the white race. Take for instance Nate Turner, the slave who led a rebellion against whites. Even the Teel’s brought their own form of justice to Henry Marrow because he “said something” to one of their white wives (1).
Laura Wexler’s Fire In a Canebrake: The Last Mass Lynching in America, is an spectacular book that depicts what, many refer to as the last mass lynching. The last mass lynching took place on July 25, 1946, located in Walton County, Georgia. On that day four black sharecroppers (Roger Malcom, Dorothy Malcom, George Dorsey and Mae Murray Dorsey) are brutally murdered by a group of white people. This book presents an epidemic, which has plagued this nation since it was established. Being African American, I know all too well the accounts presented in this book. One of the things I liked most about Fire in A Canebrake was that Wexler had different interpretations of the same events. One from a black point of view and the other from a white point of view. Unfortunately both led to no justice being served. Laura Wexler was
2- Carl Schurz wrote reports called Reports on the Condition of the South, in 1865 in which he investigated the sentiments of leaders and ordinary people, whites and blacks, from the defeated South. He describes that was not safe to wear the federal uniform on the streets and soldiers of the Union were considered intruders, Republicans were considered enemies. But, even worse was the situation of freedmen in which were expected to behave as slaves for white Southerners. Schurz heard the same phrase, “You cannot make the negro work, without physical compulsion,” (Schurz) from so many different people that he concluded that this sentiment was rooted among the southern people. He related this case of a former slaveholder that suggested blacks were unfitted for freedom, “I heard a Georgia planter argue most seriously that one of his negroes had shown himself certainly unfit for freedom because he impudently refused to submit to a whipping.”
Many African Americans lived on farms and tended for white landowners. Bob Hester was a landowner, on this farm the Moore's Ford Lynching began. On July 14, Roger Malcom followed Dorothy Malcom to Hester's farm, Roger was arguing with her. According to the original FBI report,
In the Ox-Bow Incident, Walter Van Tilburg Clark shows how in the Wild West, it wasn't as just as people think it is, people killed each other and stole cattle, and whether or not they had enough information that a person was guilty, they would hang them anyways. When Sparks and Croft are discussing having seen lynchings before, they say "Ah saw mah {Sparks} own brother lynched, Mistah Croft.","They wouldn't lynch him without knowing," I {Art} said. He thought for a while before he answered that. "They made him confess," he admitted. "But they would have anyhow," he protested. "It wouldn't have done him any good not to, and confessin' and made it shortah. It was still bad, though; awful bad," he added. Ah wouldn' lahk see a a thing like that
4) Slavery was justified by racial ideology. Consider three texts, including one that was written by a former slave. How do the authors either replicate or refute racial ideologies common in the nineteenth century?
Wells, Ida B. Southern Horrors. Lynch Law in All Its Phase. New York: New York Age Print, 1892. Print. 6.
The Scottsboro Trial and the trial of Tom Robinson are almost identical in the forms of bias shown and the accusers that were persecuted. The bias is obvious and is shown throughout both cases, which took place in the same time period. Common parallels are seen through the time period that both trials have taken place in and those who were persecuted and why they were persecuted in the first place. The thought of "All blacks were liars, and all blacks are wrongdoers," was a major part of all of these trails. A white person's word was automatically the truth when it was held up to the credibility of someone whom was black. Both trials were perfect examples of how the people of Alabama were above the law and could do whatever they wanted to the black people and get away with it. In both trials lynch mobs were formed to threaten the black people who were accused. Judge Hornton tried many times to move the case to a different place so that a fair trial could take place and not be interrupted by the racist people. Finally was granted to move the case even though the lynch mobs threatened to kill everyone who was involved in the case if it were to be moved. In this essay the bias and racism in both trials are going to be clarified and compared to each other.
As mentioned in Ralph Edward’s review An American Dilemma lies in its demonstration of how the mechanism of prejudice operates to disguise the moral conflict in the minds of whites produced by the clash on the social level between the American Creed and anti-Negro practices.
Southern Horror s: Lynch Law in All Its Phases by Ida B. Wells took me on a journey through our nations violent past. This book voices how strong the practice of lynching is sewn into the fabric of America and expresses the elevated severity of this issue; she also includes pages of graphic stories detailing lynching in the South. Wells examined the many cases of lynching based on “rape of white women” and concluded that rape was just an excuse to shadow white’s real reasons for this type of execution. It was black’s economic progress that threatened white’s ideas about black inferiority. In the South Reconstruction laws often conflicted with real Southern racism. Before I give it to you straight, let me take you on a journey through Ida’s
...any whites could have believed so strongly that blacks were inferior to them, so mediocre that they would treat them like animals and murder them in cold blood. But this is a problem that still occurs today, though in a lesser form, and it is important to study our past in effort to keep from repeating the mistakes of our ancestors. By reading things such as Anne Moody’s autobiography, we can get an inside view into what really took place in the South, and we can be inspired by people like Moody who stood up to it. The negativities of racism against blacks taught us important lessons about ethics and how humans should treat each other because we can see the effects it had on people less than 50 years ago. And if we learn from the mistakes of our ancestors and move away from their supremacist ideals, then as the freedom song in Coming of Age goes, “we shall overcome.”
“In the long run, we shape our lives, and we shape ourselves. The process never ends until we die. And the choices we make are ultimately our own responsibility.” (Eleanor Roosevelt). This is just one of the infinite examples of how human nature has been explored by so many different people. Each and every human is born with the capability of making their own choices. The decisions that they will make in the future will determine how evil they are viewed by others. Although one’s nature and nurture do affect their life, it is their own free will that determines whether or not they are evil.
...ing, it is safe to say that humans are not by nature evil but instead, they are good but easily influenced by the environment and society to act in evil way and do such evil things. You choose the road you want to take; either it’s the bad road or the good road. We are all born to live a life where we will be faced with good and evil things. We were not born to be an evil or bad person, but as you get older you make that choice. What do you want to be remembered as: the good or the bad person? Choose to be good over being bad because the rewards to your family, your friend, and yourself will always outweigh the bad.
Multiple killings of innocent, unarmed people seemed to spark the rise of social injustice of African Americans. Such as Trayvon Martin, Michael Brown, and Eric Garner. The comparison of the Salem Witch Trials and McCarthyism, social injustice against African Americans became greatly common in today's society. The unjust accusations of a specific group of people because of their race or beliefs influenced The Salem Witch Trials, McCarthyism, and the killings of African Americans. These accusations didn’t just lead to killings but an uproar in the African American community.