The Consumption Of Lynching Images By Leigh Raiford

Leigh Raiford’s piece entitled â€Å"The Consumption of Lynching Images† portrays the horrific truth of what racism looked like in the â€Å"New South† after emancipation. Similar to the film we watched in class: Without Sanctuary, The lynching photographs have the images of postcards that depict lynching and the spectacle these public executions caused at the time with crowds of people coming from all over the state to watch someone be killed. Leigh Raiford claims that through these lynching photographs whites are trying to hold on to their supremacy and identity in this new south after slavery has been abolished. The whites are frightened with the perceived loss of power and economic loss since the slave plantations will no longer be bringing in the income that they had with slaves. The lynching photographs also served as a new wave of technology by using print media for those who came to view the lynching, but were not close enough they could buy a souvenir. I n this article, Raiford says that White on black lynching can be understood as â€Å"The cruel physical manifestations of white patriarchal anxiety over a perceived loss of power in the years following emancipation† (Raiford 268). Another philosopher who writes on race is George Yancy. He wrote on the white gaze, the view that white is the transcendental norm, and whiteness is tied to socially embedded historical power privilege that functions on multiple levels of social life (Yancy). Even though lynching has ceased, the black