Tenn. official ‘threatened’ blacks with skin ‘trophy’ he saved from 1896 lynching
Source: Raw Story
Tenn. official threatened blacks with skin trophy he saved from 1896 lynching
y David Edwards
Thursday, February 20, 2014 15:25 EST
The state of Tennessee has fired a veteran investigator because officials believed that he attempted to use violent stories about how his relatives participated in a lynching to intimidate African-Americans who were trying to file claims against emergency responders.
WTVF reported that William Sewell, a medical service investigator who had been with the state for more than 40 years, told the graphic story to Shun Mullins last summer.
Mullins had filed a complaint claiming that his mother had died when the Algoods deputy fire chief refused to perform CPR because she was black. The complaint stated that the fire chief covered it up by falsifying medical reports.
Sewell had started the meeting by asking Mullins if he had ever been to prison.
Read more: http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2014/02/20/tenn-official-threatened-blacks-with-skin-trophy-he-saved-from-1896-lynching/
Scootaloo
(25,699 posts)What the shitting fuck, this shit fuck fucking what... the... bluh?
louis-t
(23,309 posts)They didn't get this way overnight, but the new normal of right-wing crazies has certainly made it easier for them to spew their hatred. Assholes, every one.
JustAnotherGen
(31,980 posts)But doncha know Judi - it can't be racism. They have good reasons and it had nothing to do with a cultural belief that people with different skin are inherently different. No - nothing to do with that at all.
Now aside - thanks for posting this. I'm somehow, sadly, not at all surprised.
JimDandy
(7,318 posts)LongTomH
(8,636 posts)KansDem
(28,498 posts)jsr
(7,712 posts)It's time for Mullins to apologize.
noiretextatique
(27,275 posts)racist assholes feel truly aggrieved when called out on their racist assholism i am sure zimmerman agrees with him
SamKnause
(13,112 posts)I wonder in his 40 years how many other people he has fucked over ???
Absolutely sickening !!!
gopiscrap
(23,766 posts)2naSalit
(86,880 posts)is what the Tparty fucks want our world to be like.
exboyfil
(17,865 posts)Nice town but you did not have to drive too far to get into this attitude (even in town "Godly" Christian men joking about running down blacks for points - I will never forget it). Friends who had a mixed race child moved to Monterey and had issues. An African American mother and her young daughter (friends of ours - her husband is a doctor) were harassed in a small town near Cookeville and warned away from a Klan meeting that was going on at the time.
wryter2000
(46,116 posts)I'm glad Mr. Mullins made an issue so this would come to light. OTOH, I'm not sure I wanted to know about that.
Sunlei
(22,651 posts)Must be hell to have to live in some of these communities.
sheshe2
(83,986 posts)Even after the death of Mullins mother and the intimidation that he suffered, Sewell argued that he was the true victim.
I am the victim because I made a mistake, Sewell observed.
Talk about White Privilege! He turns himself into the victim.
heaven05
(18,124 posts)Do they think Sewell is being victimized with some 'reverse racism'? I wonder.
sheshe2
(83,986 posts)yet I saw a lot of them on an OP I posted last night.
Sigh.
heaven05
(18,124 posts)Last edited Thu Feb 20, 2014, 08:54 PM - Edit history (1)
and left a response. Teachers always have had it rough. I'm with you.
sheshe2
(83,986 posts)I have reread the thread many times. At first it felt like a hit to the solar plexus. Breath knocked out of me. Such anger.
Yet so many wonderful posts there, in support.
Thanks heaven
heaven05
(18,124 posts)with to your brilliant OP. Yes you are welcome.
Blue_Tires
(55,445 posts)ReRe
(10,597 posts)... makes me want to
Shrike47
(6,913 posts)How could he tell them a lynching story? This is so disgusting.
MerryBlooms
(11,773 posts)PumpkinAle
(1,210 posts)and hate for people who have different skin color.
This story is sickening on so many levels. I need another word for disgusted - because I keep using it but it isn't sufficient to say how I feel when I read stories like this.
theHandpuppet
(19,964 posts)Solly Mack
(90,795 posts)dballance
(5,756 posts)Putnam County and Baxter are near the eastern edge of middle Tennessee. I went to school in a town called Cookeville not far from Baxter. One of the other neighboring towns was called Crossville. They had a saying they liked to tell African Americans in Crossville, "don't be hanging around out here after dark or you'll be HANGING around here after dark."
so this is no real surprise to me at all. Just FYI, I would to school there in the 80s.
eggplant
(3,915 posts)their side just gets intensifies. When we have almost everyone, those still on the other side will be REALLY nuts.
This asshole is one of those guys.
msanthrope
(37,549 posts)Number23
(24,544 posts)Jesus Christ.
They hung him, and they started carving his skin out of his back, Allen said. It was like he got excited telling this story.
They lowered the body, and all the white men standing around took turns removing the skin from the black mans back, Mainord recalled Sewell saying.
Dear God.
I am the victim because I made a mistake, Sewell observed.
There simply are no words.
1StrongBlackMan
(31,849 posts)He tells a Black man about a lynching that he has kept a "trophy" from, as a way to tell the Black guy that he understands racism?
Isn't that a lot like beating someone up to say I know what GETTING beat up feels like?
Jesus Malverde
(10,274 posts)Arugula Latte
(50,566 posts)BlancheSplanchnik
(20,219 posts)oh my god.
just....the whole story. oh my god.
cyberswede
(26,117 posts)gollygee
(22,336 posts)exboyfil
(17,865 posts)It appears to never have happened.
MadrasT
(7,237 posts)I don't even have any other words right now.
kelliekat44
(7,759 posts)Lifelong Protester
(8,421 posts)of the story to make me ill.
I don't like to make our southern neighbors feel bad, but how do you all stand living there? (This said while looking out at mountains of snow here, but criminy).
yurbud
(39,405 posts)When the GOP is in power, they prosecute Democrats whether they have done anything wrong or not
Sheldon Cooper
(3,724 posts)Unbelievable.
holy shit!
freshwest
(53,661 posts)Behind the Aegis
(54,032 posts)Behind the Aegis
(54,032 posts)Sewell is the fucking victim because he "made a mistake"?! This is nothing but a hate crime and should be prosecuted as such!
freshwest
(53,661 posts)Behind the Aegis
(54,032 posts)The fact he thinks he is the victim demonstrates how fucking stupid he actually is! It is a hate crime, plain and simple!
freshwest
(53,661 posts)Every pastor in America ought to have their congregation beg their God for forgiveness in churches every Sunday for this hideous heritage until the members go out and make this right daily. If not, they are just as guilty of the massive crimes committed, IMO.
yankee dandee
(12 posts)The sad fact is that the criminals involved in the deaths of African Americans are still alive---and some are in state government still.
Lying just comes easy to the good ol' Southern boys. They protect their own Klansmen.
Southerner accepting the most idiotic outrageous conspiracies as "facts" just boggles mind.
If a Republican elected official would say that he/she has it on verifiable information that Obama is a space alien from some far-off planet, the "ya'll" hicks would demand an official Congressional hearing.....to repeal Obamacare because he's not from Earth.
There has been absolutely no effort to track down and punish Southern murderers of those African Americans because they are protected by the fascist whites in power in all the Red States.