Mob Mentality
Studying these photographs has engendered in me a renewed disgust for humanity. The general lack of empathy for fellow human beings amongst the members of a lynch mob is unfathomable; the desire to fit in with the group completely overpowers morality. And this hatred does not dissolve with the mob – the victim’s horror is preserved as a festive postcard. Pictures make the lynching more tangible and realistic, but poems and novels give more insight about the dark side of human nature (and how it can be manipulated to understand others’ pain).Human nature is what makes mobs so powerful – one’s desire to be part of a group can take over his or her conscience. The tendency to be apathetic toward people we don’t know doesn’t help – and it’s the reason that we don’t care when violence happens. These pictures are grotesque and disturbing, but people who weren’t personally touched by these murders can’t understand the full weight of such losses without the background provided by a story. Reading a novel or poem about lynching gives someone who has never been personally affected by such brutality insight into how people close to the victim have been affected. Even a short background can make the picture more touching – picture four in Without Sanctuary caught my attention, but until I read the description I had little sense of the torture Bennie Simmons endured. He was alive at the time the photograph was taken, covered in oil, and about to be burned alive and shot to the point of dismemberment. No legal action was taken against Simmons’ killers.
Presenting a lynching victim as a character in a literary work makes him a person. Posting a picture of his body makes his suffering real. Either way makes me sick.
posted by Marie @ 9:59 PM
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