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Originally Posted by leebase
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Originally Posted by pdurrant
You mentioned lynch mobs. In a discussion about racism. In a forum with many members from the USA, where lynch mobs have murdered black people within living memory.
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We Americans use lynch mob where the "lynching" isn't murder by hanging, but some other form of "mob punishment".
Carry on. |
Yes - in the US (at least the parts I am familiar with) the term "lynch", or "lynch mob" has only very recently been redefined to exclusively apply to racist hangings. As Leebase said, it has routinely been used as a slang term for "mob punishment" of anybody for anything and seldom refers to actual hanging - which would be illegal. It is still a little jarring to me that "hanging" now automatically carries a racial connotation since hanging horse thieves, among others, was once considered proper.