Political Violence Isn't Rare In America

It is a necessary condition for the continuation of white supremacy.

Joshua Friday

As a 26-year-old Black American man, I have witnessed widespread political violence nearly every day of my life. I have been a victim of political violence myself, and that experience is far from unique.

Political violence is a defining feature of the American experience — a truth often overshadowed by claims that such violence is a relatively new crisis or aberration. Yet the reality is that political violence has been deeply embedded in the nation’s history, laws, and institutions from its inception. This violence has disproportionately targeted Black and Brown communities, producing trauma that echoes across generations. The recent assassination of Charlie Kirk is but one extreme expression in a long continuum of conflict, to which Kirk heavily contributed.

Inescapable and Enduring

From the formation of the nation’s earliest police forces — originally designed to hunt escaped slaves — to modern federal agencies that routinely employ violent force, the logic and machinery of coercion have always formed the backbone of governance. Violence was enshrined in law, whether through the Black Codes, Jim Crow statutes, COINTELPRO, or the long shadow of state-sanctioned lynching — a shadow that still extends its arms, horrifying marginalized communities to this day.

This month’s under-reported news of two men found lynched in Mississippi — one a young Black man, the other an unhoused man — serves as a haunting reminder of the value of life for some of America’s most endangered communities. Whether it’s a literal lynching or the more common state-sponsored violence at the hands of law enforcement, Black and Brown, impoverished, and queer people witness their communities fall victim to political violence daily.

https://www.lincolnsquare.media/p/political-violence-isnt-rare-in-america