Yes, ISIS Burned a Man Alive. White Americans Did the Same Thing to Thousands of Black People

The United States practiced a unique cultural ritual that was as gruesome as the "medieval" punishments meted out by ISIS against its foes.

 

By Chauncey DeVega / Daily Kos

February 5, 2015

ISIS burned Muadh al Kasasbeh, a captured Jordian fighter pilot, to death. They doused him with an accelerant. His captors set him on fire. Muadh al Kasasbeh desperately tried to put out the flames. ISIS recorded Muadh al Kasasbeh's immolation, produced a video designed to intimidate their enemies, and then circulated it online.
ISIS's burning alive of Muadh al Kasasbeh has been denounced as an act of savagery, barbarism, and wanton cruelty--one from the "dark ages" and not of the modern world.
American Exceptionalism blinds those who share its gaze to uncomfortable facts and truths about their own country.
For almost a century, the United States practiced a unique cultural ritual that was as gruesome as the "medieval" punishments meted out by ISIS against its foes.
What is now known as "spectacular lynching" involved the ceremonial torture, murder--and yes, burning alive--of black Americans by whites. Like ISIS's use of digital media to circulate images of the torturous death of Muadh al Kasasbeh by fire, the spectacular lynchings of the black body were shared via postcards and other media.
In fact, the burned to death images of the black body were a form of mass culture in 19th and 20th century America.