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White Republican Mississippi senator jokes about 'public hanging' White Republican Mississippi senator jokes about 'public hanging'
(35 minutes later)
A newly published video shows a white Republican US senator in Mississippi praising someone by saying: “If he invited me to a public hanging, I’d be on the front row.” In the bleak history of lynchings in the deep south, Mississippi holds dubious pride of place. According to the Equal Justice Initiative, 654 lynchings of black people were carried out within its borders, dramatically more than any other state.
Cindy Hyde-Smith, who faces a black Democratic challenger in a 27 November runoff, said on Sunday that her 2 November remark was “an exaggerated expression of regard” for someone who invited her to speak, and “any attempt to turn this into a negative connotation is ridiculous”. It is within that context that a video posted on social media on Sunday and by Monday morning viewed almost 3m times landed with incendiary impact. It showed the appearance at a campaign stop earlier this month of Cindy Hyde-Smith, the white sitting US senator from Mississippi who is locked in a fight for the seat with a black Democrat, Mike Espy.
But Mississippi has a bitter history of racially motivated lynchings of black people. The National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) says that between 1882 and 1968, there were 4,743 lynchings in the US, and nearly 73% of the victims were black. It says Mississippi had 581, the most of any state. “If he invited me to a public hanging, I’d be on the front row,” Hyde-Smith is heard saying in the video, praising a local supporter standing beside her.
Hyde-Smith is challenged by the former congressman and former US agriculture secretary Mike Espy. The senator scrambled to explain herself after the video went viral. She said it was an “exaggerated expression of regard” for the individual who had invited her to speak and “any attempt to turn this into a negative connotation is ridiculous”.
“Cindy Hyde-Smith’s comments are reprehensible,” an Espy campaign spokesman, Danny Blanton, said in a statement. “They have no place in our political discourse, in Mississippi, or our country. We need leaders, not dividers, and her words show that she lacks the understanding and judgment to represent the people of our state.” But talk of public hanging is rarely perceived as innocent in Mississippi, given the state’s sordid legacy. Lee county, where Hyde-Smith spoke at the county seat, Tupelo, was the location of two lynchings according to EJI. Neighboring Monroe county witnessed 14.
The video was shot in Tupelo, in front of a statue of Elvis Presley, who was born in the city in north-eastern Mississippi. It shows a small group of white people clapping politely for Hyde-Smith after a fellow cattle rancher introduced her. Many of the lynchings were public spectacles, where white residents would congregate from all around to watch the hanging in a carnival-like atmosphere. The killings were often carried out with unspeakable savagery and sadism.
The Republican governor, Phil Bryant, appointed Hyde-Smith to temporarily succeed Thad Cochran, who retired amid health concerns in April. She will serve until the special election is resolved. The public hanging remark was all the more contentious given the biography of Hyde-Smith’s political opponent. In 1986, Espy became the first African American in Mississippi to win a seat in the US House of Representatives since Reconstruction.
Hyde-Smith and Espy each received about 41% of the vote in a four-person race on Tuesday to advance to the runoff. The winner gets the final two years of Cochran’s term. Seven years later he broke another glass ceiling, becoming the first African American to hold the position of US agriculture secretary, under Bill Clinton.
In 1986, Espy became the first African American since Reconstruction to win a US House seat in Mississippi. If he defeats Hyde-Smith, he would be the first African American since Reconstruction to represent the state in the US Senate. Espy swiftly denounced his rival’s words as “reprehensible”. In a statement, he said: “They have no place in our political discourse, in Mississippi or our country. We need leaders, not dividers, and her words show that she lacks the understanding and judgment to represent the people of our state.”
Hyde-Smith, who is endorsed by Donald Trump, is the first woman to represent Mississippi in either chamber of Congress, and after being appointed is trying to become the first woman elected to the Senate from the state. Derrick Johnson, the national president of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) who comes from Mississippi, denounced the remark of Hyde-Smith, who has been endorsed by Donald Trump, as “shameful”. He said it yet again proved “how Trump has created a climate that normalizes hateful, racist rhetoric from political candidates”.
Lamar White Jr, publisher of a left-leaning Louisiana news site called the Bayou Brief, posted the video on Sunday on social media. White said he received the video late on Saturday from “a very reliable, trusted source”, but he would not reveal the person’s name. He said that source received it from the person who shot the video. Hyde-Smith has occupied Mississippi’s junior Senate seat since April, when she was appointed to the position temporarily to replace Thad Cochran who stood down for ill health. She is competing with Espy for the final two years of Cochran’s term.
White said he believes he received the video because he has been writing about racism in the south for about a dozen years. Both candidates gained 41% of the vote in the midterm elections last week, but having failed to reach 50% they must now compete against each other in a runoff on 27 November. Now another Republican, Chris McDaniel, has dropped out, the conservative vote will no longer be split and Hyde-Smith is considered the comfortable frontrunner in a state that hasn’t sent a Democrat to the Senate since 1982.
“There’s no excuse to say what she said,” White said of Hyde-Smith. The video was acquired by the publisher of a Louisiana news site, the Bayou Brief, from the person who had filmed it. The proprietor of the Bayou Brief, Lamar White Jr, told the Associated Press the footage had come to him because of his track record of reporting racism in the deep south.
The national NAACP president, Derrick Johnson, who is from Mississippi, said Hyde-Smith’s comment shows a lack of judgment. “There’s no excuse to say what she said,” White said.
“Senator Cindy Hyde-Smith’s shameful remarks prove once again how Trump has created a social and political climate that normalizes hateful and racist rhetoric,” Johnson said in a statement. Hyde-Smith’s comment was made to a very small group of white supporters in Tupelo. She was standing in front of a statute of Elvis Presley, who was born in the town.
“Hyde-Smith’s decision to joke about ‘hanging’ in a state known for its violent and terroristic history toward African Americans, is sick. To envision this brutal and degenerate type of frame during a time when black people, Jewish people and immigrants are still being targeted for violence by white nationalists and racists is hateful and hurtful.”
A Republican activist who initially supported another candidate in the special US Senate election said he will vote for Hyde-Smith in the runoff, even though he considers her a weak candidate.
“That comment about ‘a public hanging’ is much ado about nothing,” said Scott Brewster of Brandon, who is white. “She’s not very smart and made a tone-deaf comment. It doesn’t make her a racist.”
A Republican state lawmaker in Mississippi, Karl Oliver, came under sharp criticism in May 2017 after he posted on Facebook that people should be lynched for removing Confederate monuments.
MississippiMississippi
US midterms 2018US midterms 2018
US SenateUS Senate
RaceRace
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