Below is an email I sent Bob a week and a half ago. Since this email probably got lost in the horde of emails in his inbox, I'm posting the content here.
Perhaps one of you can answer my question? I don't want to call into his show about this.
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Bob,
I just saw your "God and the Death Penalty" tape. It was well done, well documented, and well reasoned: classic Enyart stuff.
However, the last image the tape leaves the viewers with is that of an apparent lynching from a tree. Certainly, lynchings would violate God's criminal justice system, wouldn't it? Worse for me, it looked like a lynching of a black man in the South by a white mob. I recall many execution pictures like this one where blacks were scapegoated and lynched without a trial (or at least a just one). Because your tape gave no details on the execution, it leaves us to ponder.
I'm black and have no issues with executing murderers of any skin color. However, most of my friends are black [and Christian] and against the death penalty, yet should really see this tape. Now I don't want to lend it to them knowing that some (maybe all) will stumble on this very scene given the sensitivities of the past injustices and atrocities done to blacks here. Not to mention that now I will have to convince them all that you're not a racist.
What's going on here, Bob?
Perhaps one of you can answer my question? I don't want to call into his show about this.
------------------------------------------------------------
Bob,
I just saw your "God and the Death Penalty" tape. It was well done, well documented, and well reasoned: classic Enyart stuff.
However, the last image the tape leaves the viewers with is that of an apparent lynching from a tree. Certainly, lynchings would violate God's criminal justice system, wouldn't it? Worse for me, it looked like a lynching of a black man in the South by a white mob. I recall many execution pictures like this one where blacks were scapegoated and lynched without a trial (or at least a just one). Because your tape gave no details on the execution, it leaves us to ponder.
I'm black and have no issues with executing murderers of any skin color. However, most of my friends are black [and Christian] and against the death penalty, yet should really see this tape. Now I don't want to lend it to them knowing that some (maybe all) will stumble on this very scene given the sensitivities of the past injustices and atrocities done to blacks here. Not to mention that now I will have to convince them all that you're not a racist.
What's going on here, Bob?