Lynching made whiteness tangible by dissecting Black bodies

Evidence

[Lynching] transform[ed] ‘whiteness’ into something visible and terribly tangible, into something ‘real.’ In the gruesome act of dissecting the body of an African American man, white men and women convinced themselves of their own physical superiority. — Sherene Razack, Casting Out, 160

Categorization

• XREF: Resonates with the grotesque-body politics in Things Fall Apart and with theories of racial embodiment — race made real through ritualized violence on others’ bodies. — connects to: Racial proximity that symbolized affection was a lynching catalyst for black men — Robert P. Jones, White Too Long: The Legacy of White…, 603
• ADDENDUM: Supports ‘On Sacrifice’ by showing ritualized violence against a body functioning as a community-stabilizing spectacle that confirms the dominant group’s superiority.