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Bill Torpy missing the point by a mile on race and history. He writes that calling Arbery's killing a lynching is "hyperbole," since lynchings are "purposeful act[s] of a mob tracking down and killing a victim." That's not only inaccurate, but harmful. https://www.ajc.com/news/local/opinion-lynching-but-arbery-case-certainly-raises-those-ghosts/K846lGdrNUmBFG3zZskYFO/
As the work done by @buriedtruthspod /Emory's Georgia Cold Cases ( https://coldcases.emory.edu/ ) shows, racially motivated killings don't always look like the stereotype of the angry mob—though there are certainly many that do. But emphasizing that stereotype elides much of history.
Take the case of Clarence Pickett, a Black preacher killed in Columbus, Ga. in 1957. FBI documents show that he was beaten in jail by one police officer after "talking back;" he died from his injuries days later. https://coldcases.emory.edu/baby-they-done-killed-me-the-troubled-life-and-brutal-death-of-clarence-pickett/
Other officers chose not to intervene, or provide Pickett medical attention. (When Pickett later went to a doctor, his symptoms were ignored.) One police officer beat him, and a system of white supremacy, with multiple actors, led to his death—not a mob with pitchforks.
Torpy writes: "The incident wasn’t a lynching...But it seems to be a remnant of that—ham-handed stupidity and aggression probably driven by race and a man who wanted to be a neighborhood hero." Read lynching history, and you might see "stupidity" and "aggression" in many cases.
It doesn't change the context—that extrajudicial killings such as these occur within a legacy and system of white supremacy. What else might we call this lineage?
