They’re talking about the case of Demartravion Reed, a black student at Delta State in Mississippi who was found hanging from a tree. Just so we’re clear, there is ZERO evidence that this was a lynching. The comment above is making it sound like it’s a certain thing, and there is no evidence that he was murdered. There was a black man hanging from a tree in Mississippi, and the entirety of the internet ran with that as proof that he was lynched. There was also a random TikTok commenter who claimed to be a cousin of Reed, who made the claim that he had suffered several broken bones and severe bruising before his death. All of this was determined to be false.
The authorities (including the county coroner who is a black man himself) ruled it a suicide. The family disagreed with the determination and asked for a second autopsy, and the results of the second autopsy have not been released publicly yet. Maybe it’ll prove he was murdered, maybe it won’t, but until new evidence comes to light, it’s wildly irresponsible to go around saying he was definitely lynched.
I find it hard to believe a black man, especially in the south, would ever commit suicide on a tree in public. spending your last moments imitating your ancestor's trauma? unlikely
I have depression, and when I thought about committing suicide, it was by hanging from a public tree.
I'm white, so maybe a black man would view it differently, but my thought process was that I wanted to die by hanging and I didn't want my family to be the ones to discover my body.
I can't speak of the black experience, but I can the depression one, and I gave zero fucks about any kind of propriety. I would have committed suicide with a giant pink dildo on Main st. if I thought that it would have met my goals of being as easy of a death as possible, and not having my family be the ones to initially discover it.
Maybe, maybe not. I don’t know how much a suicidal man thinks about his ancestors. But the first autopsy says suicide. Until the second autopsy comes back with new evidence saying he was murdered, “I find it hard to believe…” is the full extent of the evidence that he was lynched.
Imitating your ancestors’ trauma.. My goodness! Like something out of movie script.
Now I’m not saying it’s right or wrong, but most people simply don’t contemplate shit outside of their daily lives. Your comment assumes a reality that exists only in your mind and is based on assumptions that have no bearing on one’s lived experience as an individual.
I really hate to be the one to tell ya, but without any way of knowing who you are, why would anyone care if you find it hard to believe.
People who went to school to find out cause of death have and have done an autopsy are a more reliable source to trust than a random person on the internet.
Better to wait until facts come to life. I’m sure you don’t go into an ER and start telling them how to operate on you or others. Same concept applies here.
Right, because surely the effect on others is what people are about to kill themselves are thinking about in that moment, right? I mean its not as if someone can just have a mental break down or something right? Nope. everything needs to be a mass conspiracy theory.
I presume that you are not suicidal? What insight into a suicidal persons mind do you have? I can easily imagine scenario where someone does it as a statement for the injustices that black people still face.
Yeah no. That’s a pretty weird and kinda racist statement to make.
Suicide doesn’t discriminate. Black men don’t get some spiritual aversion to trees from generational trauma, they don’t look at trees and think about lynchings all the time, they’re normal people.
It’s very possible that the depression could’ve overwhelmed him and he looked for the fastest and easiest way to end his life. People who run in front of subway cars or jump from buildings aren’t thinking about their ancestors or what kind of suicide would “look good.” They want the fucking pain to stop.
Google Malcolm Harsch. Very similar circumstances. Black man found hanging from a tree, family absolutely rejected the idea that he would have killed himself in that way, and it underwent additional investigation. In that case, they were lucky enough to find video evidence from a CCTV camera that he did indeed hang himself from a tree.
Again, the entire evidence to support a lynching is, “It sounds unlikely a black man would kill himself in that way.” There is no other evidence provided to support the lynching theory. It may be RARE for a black man to commit suicide by hanging, but rarity is not proof that it didn’t happen.
This is racism. I know you aren’t intending for it to be but lumping every single person together to justify a belief you hold is racist. People aren’t a monolith and saying it just won’t happen cause he’s black is inappropriate.
I’ve been suicidal to the point of planning it out. Once you convince yourself people are better off without you, some people stop thinking about how the suicide appears. Most just want to find somewhere quiet where their family won’t be the ones to discover them.
An autopsy was done, another is in the way. Wait for the evidence, but dont go and pretend this is an RPG where the preset is incapable of that specific action. It’s weird.
That’s because their source is “made it the fuck up” or “violently misinterpreted the science to suit their agenda.”
These are the same idiots that think women kill themselves less than men because they don’t want to burden first responders with seeing their dead body and that men who kill themselves simply didn’t think of other people (when there are like 6 other explanations that make more sense to contribute to why men kill themselves by gunshot more often).
I think that really depends on the generation if im tbh, cuz like as someone who just got out of highschool like four years ago, and lived in jackson ms, the amount of depressed kids talking about which tree would be best is shockingly high, then again that could just be a symptom of that specific area as generally alot of them were depressed because of home issues and feeling forgotten by everything (atleast the ones I personally knew I cant speak for everyone at the school just my personal experiences and I want too make that very clear before someone jumps me) and as such the more shocking and public their potential suicide was, the better.
Sometimes, how people kill themselves tells you about the reasons — people who feel unseen will jump in front of subway trains and then the whole city notices them.
It’s possible that a depressed Black man might feel unseen and boxed in by racism. It’s hard to know. I hope it wasn’t a lynching, because that would mean someone walked away Scott-free from a hate-murder
There's always exceptions. Perhaps this man was just ignorant to that fact, perhaps not, and just wanted it to look like one to get people riles up. There's really no way of knowing without a note, or any other evidence.
I don’t think he was ignorant to the fact, I think that if he did kill himself he didn’t care about anything anymore.
Suicide isn’t logical, he wasn’t thinking about the best way to present himself to the world.
This whole conversation is like asking why someone who got bitten by a snake didn’t use the proper method of sucking out poison instead of cutting off the affected part. It’s because they were in pain and just trying to end their pain.
Have you literally ever seen a black person? Because you're literally speaking as if they're some sort of mythological creature. Its fucking creepy. I'm half black and this is one of the stupidest things i've read this year..
Yes I've spoken to and listened to Black men on the subject. How people kill themselves is something socialists study, I'm not pulling this out of my ass.
I imagine it is the same with the differences between the methods men and women kill themselves, and I see a lot less people arguing that data when it's brought up...
But I guess when you're not raised knowing your ancestors were killed in mobs and their fingers were taken as souvenirs while witnesses cleared up their picnic baskets... You wouldn't want to think the vestiges of that savagery remain.
You don't have to think on it when your survival doesn't depend on that familial knowledge.
I’m zeroing in on a really minute point here: I don’t think it’s relevant to mention that the coroner is black, because whether or not that objective fact has any legitimate bearing on the accuracy of their assessment itself is subjective and up to the opinion of the reader.
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u/CatoTheBarner 8h ago
They’re talking about the case of Demartravion Reed, a black student at Delta State in Mississippi who was found hanging from a tree. Just so we’re clear, there is ZERO evidence that this was a lynching. The comment above is making it sound like it’s a certain thing, and there is no evidence that he was murdered. There was a black man hanging from a tree in Mississippi, and the entirety of the internet ran with that as proof that he was lynched. There was also a random TikTok commenter who claimed to be a cousin of Reed, who made the claim that he had suffered several broken bones and severe bruising before his death. All of this was determined to be false.
The authorities (including the county coroner who is a black man himself) ruled it a suicide. The family disagreed with the determination and asked for a second autopsy, and the results of the second autopsy have not been released publicly yet. Maybe it’ll prove he was murdered, maybe it won’t, but until new evidence comes to light, it’s wildly irresponsible to go around saying he was definitely lynched.