On a sticky-hot, summer morning in 1936, twenty-two year-old Rainey Bethea, a black man, dropped 8 feet 6 inches through a trap door, breaking his neck. He was hanged for the rape and murder of a 70-year-old woman, Lischia Edwards.
Approximately 20,000 adults and children crowded into the Owensboro, Kentucky town square to watch. Photographs show people climbing utility poles and rooftops to get a glimpse of the circus-like atmosphere. Carnival barkers sold popcorn, coffee, and souvenirs to the throngs of onlookers seeking to get a glimpse of the condemned man. To watch his lifeless body convulse and eventually sway in the wind. See, hangings don’t always go as planned. Strangulation can take several minutes, during which time the condemned loses all control of their bladder and bowels.
Onlookers were there to watch an execution but also to witness history. See, Bethea, a Black man, was the first public execution under the authority of Sheriff Florence Thompson, the first woman to serve as a sheriff in Kentucky. It would also be the last widely recognized public execution in the United States for 90 years.
The Pentagon recently announced plans for the execution by firing squad of Nidal Hasan. A wheel chair bound former U.S. Army major, Hasan murdered 13 people and wounded 32 others at Fort Hood in 2009. It was the deadliest mass shooting ever on a U.S. Military base. The families and survivors have waited 17 years for justice, and on December 3rd their wait is scheduled to end.
I was in Texas on a business trip the day it happened. The crime was horrific, and Hasan deserves to die. That’s not at issue. What’s at issue is whether we need to watch his final moments and ultimate demise via livestream. See, The Pentagon announced plans to live stream the execution on December 3rd. A few days later The White House stepped in to stop the live stream the execution. Of course, now the country is bitterly divided.
In post-modern America, it seems nothing is sacred. We've turned experiences that were once private, intimate, or even sacred into entertainment. Today, everything is staged: marriage proposals are choreographed and professionally photographed with a live audience of friends and family. It seems that everyone is in on the secret except the soon-to-be bride. That is, if she says yes.
Instagram and Tik-Tok frequently host videos of one romantic partner pointing out all the flaws of another to the virtual world, like failing to take out the trash or failing to load the dishwasher. Watch example here. It got 319K views, so far.
Love Island (Hulu, Peacock, Amazon Prime) quarantines ten beautiful singles in a luxurious villa. To stay in the game you, must “couple up” and share a bed with a different person each week during the taping. Every inch of the villa is filmed 24/7 by a production crew. Microphones must be worn at all times, even in the toilet. Watch trailer here.
At some point the voyeurism becomes less about watching life through the camera and more about people living their lives for the camera. All this streaming technology is allowing us to bring back forms of public spectacle that earlier generations thoughtfully chose to abandon. It’s been 90 years since a civilized society executed a condemned man.
Shall we also bring back gladiatorial combat, public flogging, tarring and feathering, and mass lynchings? And why not rent out AT&T Stadium, in Arlington, Texas and turn it into a Roman arena like in old Rome?
As civilized people, we are admonished by faith not to rejoice in the suffering of others. For a brief period, Americans celebrated suffering in the town square. We should be mindful that those good people of another era came to the conclusion that some things are best left in the shadows. That what is barbaric, albeit justified, need not be entertainment. That justice is not a spectator sport.
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