What are the roots of this violence and how do we fight it?
After a century of attempts by Black activists and lawmakers, President Joe Biden signed the Emmett Till Anti-Lynching Act on the White House lawn, surrounded by Black politicians, clergy, and nonprofit leaders. The new federal law makes lynching a hate crime. Representative Bobby Rush, the bill’s sponsor in the House of Representatives, called the moment “a day of enormous consequence for our nation.” But I had questions. Doubts really. Do white supremacists kill Black people because we did not have a federal anti-lynching law? If not, then does Congress think that such a law will be a deterrent? Will federal prosecutors listen to Black families who say their children were lynched – or to police and coroners who call suspicious deaths “suicides”? Will this law punish civilians for violence but reward them if they join police departments?
I sent my editor a draft of an essay questioning the Emmett Till Anti-Lynching Act. I did not have the energy to respond to the potential backlash from readers, so I sat on my criticisms, reflected on my arguments and prayed that I would be wrong. Then last week, an 18 year old white supremacist drove to a grocery store in Buffalo, New York and murdered 10 Black people. He published a manifesto espousing his horrific views and penciled a racial slur on his gun. Maybe he hadn’t heard about the consequences listed in the Emmett Till Anti-Lynching Act. Or, maybe he was willing to accept them in exchange for the lives he took. Cops arrested him like they arrested white supremacist shooter Dylann Roof– alive and with care.
Derecka Purnell is a Guardian US columnist. She is also a social movement lawyer and writer based in Washington, DC. She is the author of Becoming Abolitionists: Police, Protests, and the Pursuit of Freedom
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