Invented claims of lynchings and racist violence are irresponsible — and dangerous
“Cases of Black people found hanged in the US South are a reminder of nation’s lynching history,” read an ABC News headline last month. That phrase – “lynching” – has been used again and again in reporting on the death of a woman in Mississippi. The Associated Press used the word, as did the British state broadcaster the BBC, the Los Angeles Times and the Washington Post. You may think, with such a loaded phrase, that the suspects are members of the KKK. In fact, all three are black men, charged with the murder of Tasia Fortune, a 29-year-old woman found dead on August 3 in Jackson. Fortune’s own mother has said that she doesn’t believe the killing was motivated by race. You would hardly know it from the media’s coverage.
