Talk:Emmett Till Antilynching Act/Archive 1

Archive 1

Law Doesn't Seem to Outlaw Lynching

I read the text of the bill as well as 18 USC sec. 249 which it amends several times and compared it to several definitions of lynching including the definition in Lynching. I'm also a lawyer, although I don't specialize in federal constitutional law. Despite the bill's name, I don't read the bill as outlawing lynching as defined in the Lynching article on Wikipedia or as defined in most common dictionary definitions. Rather, it fairly broadly defines "lynching" as conspiracy to commit certain other hate crimes which result in death or serious bodily injury. As I read the statute, conspiring with a friend to beat up a person in a bar because the person is a Hindu would be considered "lynching" if the person suffered a serious bodily injury, even though I don't think most people would consider something like that lynching. An extrajudicial killing by a group (i.e. a mob) is already illegal and would already be a hate crime. I've never heard of anyone talk about "lynching" as a conspiracy to kill someone rather than the actual killing itself. So notwithstanding the law's title, I don't believe it could reasonably be described as outlawing lynching. But if anyone else has a different take on it, I'd be interested in hearing it.

I also put a "dubious" tag on the statement that "A federal antilynching[dubious – discuss] bill had been in discussion for over a century and had been proposed hundreds of times." If those other proposals are like this one, they may not be bills that one could reasonably characterize as "antilynching" bills.

Nogburt (talk) 09:31, 8 March 2022 (UTC)

Hi there. I added a citation to <https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/retropolis/wp/2018/07/05/how-congress-failed-nearly-200-times-to-make-lynching-a-federal-crime/>. Which reliable sources support the claims you're making here? --MZMcBride (talk) 09:33, 8 March 2022 (UTC)

The only reasonable response here is to point out that this entire line of reasoning is original research: pointing to personal qualifications as a lawyer; taking on the role of interpreting the legal text; and characterizing past proposals all by ones' self. All this rather than including here how those past proposals, as well as this one, are referred to by reliable sources as "antilynching". --Pinchme123 (talk) 11:43, 8 March 2022 (UTC)

What is it?

I know nothing about this subject and came here looking for information on what the bill actually said. I understand "antilynching", but there's a lot of leeway in that title depending on the actual text. Someone who knows about this stuff might consider adding just a brief description of what, specifically, it was designed to do. 50.25.203.252 (talk) 16:55, 25 November 2021 (UTC)

Further, since there is a dispute in Congress based upon the bill's definition of lynching, it would help if the article contained the Bill's definition and Paul's proposal, with a comparison.--kbachler (talk) 02:25, 21 February 2022 (UTC)

I added the final text here: <https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Emmett_Till_Antilynching_Act&oldid=1075889846#Text>. --MZMcBride (talk) 06:34, 8 March 2022 (UTC)

This article from June 2020 in The New York Times has some good context that we should incorporate into the article. --MZMcBride (talk) 07:35, 9 March 2022 (UTC)