A Woman Was Lynched Today

In the United States an average of four women a day are murdered because they are women. Four women a day.

If they were all murdered in one place it would be national news but these women are seldom murdered in the same place so it is a statistic. That isn’t acceptable. The lives of these women and girls are not numbers. The numbers don’t mention the fact that their central right was taken from them. To stop the campaign of terror that results from this it is necessary to call it what it is, lynching. These murders are lynching because the victims are murdered because of their gender just as other victims are murdered because of their race, ethnicity, religion or class. The cultural results of this include the terror women and girls live under because they are at greater risk.

Please post information and links about news stories giving the information of when these crimes happen. If the names of the victims and the places they lived are collected in one place then the statistic stops being just a number in a report. The country needs to have this epidemic of murder exposed in a way that is undeniable, unsensational, which protects the privacy and dignity of the victims, which doesn’t risk turning the murderers into celebrities or role models.

Please be certain that any information posted be based on reliable news sources with links or references given. The information should be about the victim, protecting her privacy and dignity.

Please do not include any details of the murders which could be seen as sensational or which you could imagine encouraging imitation. I am especially concerned with that aspect of this and will edit or delete any postings that I read which could violate these rules. I am certain to miss any of these so will ask you to be responsible for what you post.

I will also delete anything which is offensive or which could result in legal problems for myself.

Any measures necessary to further the purpose of this blog or those caused by my ability to manage it will be announced as they are enacted. This is something I've never done before so I am certain that many changes will be made over time.

The model of this blog is found in the anti-lynching campaign of the 19th and 20th centuries. Ida B. Wells-Barnett, Walter Francis White, The NAACP and others documented the long and dirty war conducted against African-Americans, often at risk of their lives. At the NAACP headquarters in Atlanta a flag was too often placed outside the window of their office. It read “A Man Was Lynched Yesterday”. No one who saw that flag could ignore the fact that the terror campaign was ongoing and that real people were dying.