Allegations of rape and sexual violence against white women were one of the most commonly cited justifications for lynching Black men in America, though the historical record shows these charges were routinely fabricated or grossly distorted.
Statistics show that about one-fourth of all lynchings from 1880 to 1930 were actually prompted by an accusation of rape. In fact, most victims were political activists, labor organizers, or Black men and women who simply violated white expectations of deference.
White mobs used these allegations to enforce segregation and advance stereotypes of Black men as violent, hypersexual aggressors. The brute caricature of the hypersexual Black male was a myth used to justify the violence, which in turn functioned as a social control mechanism to instill fear in Black communities — sending messages not to register to vote, not to apply for white men’s jobs, not to organize, not to complain publicly.
This caricature gained in popularity whenever Black people pushed for social equality.
Journalist and activist Ida B. Wells was among the first to systematically document and expose this pattern. In 1892, she published Southern Horrors: Lynch Law in All Its Phases, which connected names, dates, and identities to individual cases of lynchings and rape accusations to show that that the rape narrative used to justify lynching was a deliberate fabrication, writing, “nobody in this section of the country believes the old threadbare lie that Negro men rape white women.”
She documented that the true motivation for lynching was the enforcement of racial hierarchy.
No independent international human rights organization has confirmed a single case of rape by Palestinian fighters on October 7.
Hasan Piker says the designated terrorist organization Hamas is 1,000 times better than Israel.
His statement outraged many — who now just want to write him off. That's a mistake. He has a massive audience and is emerging as one of the major voices of his generation. Those of us who disagree owe him — and his audience — a real argument.
Here's mine … And my position doesn’t come from ignorance about oppression. For a big chunk of my life, I was a grassroots activist — because of the pain of my own people. During those years, I was lucky enough to learn from elders who had been in the Black Panther Party, in SNCC, in the ANC. These were people who had to choose whether to pick up the gun — and how to use it if they did.
They taught me this: even in armed struggle, there are principles. No women. No children. No rapes. No kidnapping. Mandela held that line. Amílcar Cabral held that line. You don't become what you're fighting.
Hamas fails that test. They are not fighting for MORE freedom for Palestinians. They're fighting for less. They want theocracy, not democracy. And their means? They don’t use principled armed struggle (hitting military targets). They use terrorism (targeting civilians).
The vast majority of Americans — including those who sympathize with the Palestinian cause — reject terror tactics. Reasonable people would agree on three principles: secure homelands for both peoples; no hatred for Jews or Muslims; and protection for all civilians. Hamas’ approach undermines all three.
That's the conversation Piker's audience deserves. Not name-calling.