Input information or mis- or disinformation.

Maybe it’s a single word–socialism–or a phase–Defund the Police or Black Lives Matter or Stop the Count or Stop the Steal!

A knee jerks. Eyes and ears close and go mostly inactive except for seeing and hearing only what they want to see and hear. The mind closes, too, but behind the slammed and locked door the brain-on-fire burns hot inside its echoing silo. With no further information or misinformation needed, the mind will run with what little it has a grip on and build around it a belief system, a world, a plan of action, a limited reaction of likes-loves-hates-etc.

Here’s an example.

Back in the summer of 2020, sometime after the murder of George Floyd, I engaged in a brief conversation with a friend on Facebook. While Leesa and I were mostly on lockdown, the online environment was charged with reaction to the Floyd murder, as well as other similar situations. This friend–with whom I’ve shared a worktable at a Rise Against Hunger event and Christian mission in the Czech Republic (although we weren’t there the same summers)–shared a happy plantation story about an east Tennessee ancestor and the slaves who loved him. That was beyond my knowledge, of course, but I couldn’t help but think of my experience reading Frederick Douglass, who wrote at one point in his Narrative, “I was now about twelve years old, and the thought of being a slave for life began to bear heavily upon my heart.” Happy or not (and that’s a perception largely from the slaveholder’s point of view), the condition of “a slave for life” or even that of being black in America is one that white people can’t imagine or dismiss.

But then my friend threw out this gem as a response to the issue of racial violence: In American history, he wrote, “As many whites were lynched as blacks. You won’t see that in the books at school.” Now, this is exactly the kind of (mis)information I referred to above. Fact or not, a mind such as my friend’s takes hold and reacts. The knee-jerk reaction. The easy spark of satisfying anger over the outrage of whites being lynched in Christian Euro-America ignites the brain that then burns not to seek the truth but to spread the fact without knowing if it’s true or not (and how it’s true or not), if it’s information or misinformation.

“As many whites were lynched as blacks. You won’t see that in the books at school.” Having no relevant information in my own mind, I don’t think I responded with anything more than a “Really?” (not sarcasm but as in “Hmm, I wonder if that’s true”). What was his response but a prime example of deflecting responsibility or recognition with a mindless, heartless “Both sides!” dismissal of racial violence. I could have done the easy thing, which would be to accept that violence occurred on both sides–“you also had very fine people, on both sides”–so that my friend and I both walked away with a “Fine!” or a “Whatever!” and our respective (mis)information–or no information–intact. But because I don’t like not knowing things and because I wanted to model what I think is right behavior when faced with something I don’t know to be a fact, I decided to do just fifteen minutes worth of research.

Here’s what I learned.

From the 1830s through the 1850s, the majority of people lynched were white, making my friend correct as far as that simple, unqualified fact goes. But if that’s as far as knowledge reaches, it’s easy to manipulate the fact to the typical bullying, shallow “Both sides!” argument. Crack open an eye–crack open the mind–just a little bit, and a couple of qualifying facts present themselves. First, 90% of white lynchings took place in the West–Arkansas (which was West then), Texas, Oklahoma, Nebraska, and Montana). There, white posses caught and lynched fellow whites for crimes such as murder and rustling cattle. White men were on both ends of the rope, so to speak. Second, almost all blacks during that same period–1830s-1850s–were slaves and therefore valuable property, everywhere through the South generally too valuable to be destroyed by lynching except at the utmost fever pitch of white insult. So, yes, “[a]s many whites were lynched as blacks,” but I hope you can see that’s nowhere near the whole story my friend’s mic drop suggested.

After the Civil War and the Emancipation Proclamation, between 1882 and 1968 (yes, year of our Lord nineteen hundred sixty-eight, a mere fifty-two years ago), 4,743 lynchings were recorded; given the nature of the act, however, it’s almost certain that not all incidents of lynching made it into the records. Of the 4,743 lynchings recorded 1882-1968, 3,446 (73%) were blacks while 1,297 (27%) were whites. Almost all black lynchings (90%) took place is four Southern states: Georgia, Mississippi, Louisiana, and Texas. It’s safe to say that near 100% of these black lynchings were carried out by mobs of white men. While black crimes probably included actual crimes, such as murder, theft, and so on, they also included such behaviors as not being respectful enough to whites, especially white women, or just being perceived as being not respectful enough.

Again, almost all white lynchings during the same period, 1882-1968, took place in the West and North. In fact, these states lynched only whites: Maine, Vermont, Wisconsin, South Dakota, Idaho, Nevada, and Arizona. It’s likewise safe to say that near 100% of white lynchings were carried out by mobs of white men not only for those crimes previously listed (murder and livestock theft) but also for helping blacks or just being anti-lynching.

“As many whites were lynched as blacks. You won’t see that in the books at school.” Okay, this contains some surface truth, but even if you don’t have the details my research revealed above (again, about fifteen minutes of research), it’s easy to understand how this fails miserably as a “Both sides!” argument. The fact of white lynchings works as a “Both sides!” argument only if those white people were lynched by mobs of angry blacks. That’s only fair, right? But then how likely is it that between the 1830s and the 1850s, and again between 1882 and 1968, more than 1,297 whites were lynched by blacks? It isn’t at all likely. It simply isn’t.

So, in this time when social media, conspiracy theorists, and politicized news media tend to spit up all kinds of nasty one-liners that come ready-made for chant-able slogans, before we join the chanting we should take a breath, first, then just expend a bit of energy to think about what we’re being invited to chant, maybe even research it. And before we cut off an argument–or allow our argument to be cut off–by the whining cry of “Both sides!” let’s just stop and think, ‘Really?’ Then make sure it is truly the condition or equally faulty behavior of both sides before we do the “Whatever!”-walkaway or engage in friendly debate as citizens of a democracy–or democratic republic, if you prefer–should.