In the text Southern Horrors edited by Jacqueline Jones Royster, Ida B. Wells, an African American journalist from the late 1800's, questioned white southerners motives for lynching African Americans. After the civil war, white men felt threatened by the new freedoms that were given to African Americans because they felt that soon enough they would no longer have control over them.This caused white men to look for any excuse to take away the rights of African Americans, so that this way they wold regain the power and control they had over them. In this blog i will use my critical thinking skills to discuss Ida B. Wells' arguments on lynching.
Wells believed that lynching was unreasonable and that it was not because of the white women supposedly being raped by black men. But because white men felt that their economic and overall control would eventually no longer be. One of the most important passages from Lynch Law In All Its Faces by Ida B. Well is about interracial sex. This is important because it shows how black men never forced white women to sleep with them, therefore, rape was not a legitimate reason to lynch Afro-American men. Wells said " There were many white women in the south who would marry colored men if such an act wouldn't place them at once beyond the pale of the south only operate against the legitimate union of the races" (Royster pg.53). This means that if it wasn't illegal, white women would even marry black men. It could be said that if there were no laws against interracial sex, then white women wouldn't have to sneak around with black men and then accuse them of rape to keep their reputation clean.
Wells felt that this was all absurd.White men were just scared of how black men were gaining wealth and property because of their freedom. She argued that "rape" was just an excuse to deprive African Americans of their human rights and have control over them.
Dear Juana,
ReplyDeleteI’m so sorry I commented on the wrong blog before. I apologize.
I like the way you started out by introducing the idea, where you got the information from and people. Use I, I love the fact that you used the name of people, however, you should give a brief statement on each person. Just so you know who they are. “One of the most important… “That sentence needs to be finished you stopped half way and put a period and began a new sentence about interracial sex. Should that be one sentence? Legitimate-nice word! Please correct citation (Royster 53). You introduced you quote a bit but you didn’t give any paraphrased statements after the quote nor did you really explain about the quote to the point where it was understandable. I like your ending as it is there, but it felt like you just threw men off half way. I was very interested in what you were saying and wanted to know more but it’s as if you cut me off from what you were telling me half way. One last thing is you should define a few keywords such as : lynching, if I didn’t know what it was I would have been reading your paragraph and saying to myself what it this. Also rape, I think a lot of people know what rape is so maybe explain it a bit and relate it to your reading. Otherwise I love your simple language.