Suicide IS NOT painless... as the TV show MASH theme song said. In fact, hanging as suicide seems not always suicide at all, except sometimes, as a cover-up to lynching.

I have a true story to share. It does have a reason for being told.

This is my dad's family. Aunt Ethel is at the far right. I never knew her. She killed by a zealous suitor (boy friend) when she was 25. That youngest sitting boy is my dad. Grandma and grandpa were early 1900 immigrants from Italy. They had five girls, three boys and lived in Chicago.

As kids, we were told Aunt Ethel lived in Italy, but as I grew older, it was little and reluctantly discussed. I needed a better answer. Years later and with the help of the internet which didn't exist until dad and all of his family had died, I searched the Chicago Tribune's records for information thinking her killer would surely have been executed as happened often in those days of Al Capone, Nothing.

The searchable archives didn't go back far enough so on a whim, I emailed the Tribune's obituary editor one evening. Thirty minutes later, I received a copy of a six inch story headlined: "Couple die in a double suicide pact." 

It was the story of my Aunt Ethel and her boyfriend who, one afternoon at a motel, shot her then himself. The police were quick to say it was a double suicide because it seemed possible and that closed the books on anything left to be done. The story also noted that my Aunt Ethel had two bullet wounds. The bullet that killed her passed through her arm, as if held up in defense, before entering her head. She left no note or displayed any such thoughts I learned. It didn't seem to me that this was a mutual act and in fact, it probably was a murder and suicide.

Aunt Ethel was said to be a delight, bringing joy to those who knew her. She was always smiling. Dad's family felt certain that Aunt Ethel knew nothing about such a plan. The boyfriend was not at all liked by Aunt Ethel's family and the two of them may have been separating... or not.

So here's where this story has a 'today' relevance:

Have you noted in this last month that there have been six (6) separate deaths by hanging--four black men, one black woman and a hispanic man--in public areas? All are being initially called suicides. Really? Further evidence and autopsies are still pending. What will they show?

From 1862 and 1968 there were 4,978 lynchings in America, 3,436 blacks and 1,247 whites, mostly made up of those trying to help blacks or for various other similar reasons of the day. The last noted lynching was as late as 1981in Mobile, Alabama. That's within many of our lifetimes!

But really? Six black suicides by hanging in public places to be seen by all in these last few months? That would be an extremely rare and bizarre coincidence, especially by black men at this specific time... if they actually were suicides... or more believable, murders.  When a spokesman for the police, in one of the two hangings of black men this past week, talked about finding "the victim," it didn't seem he was talking about a suicide. A victim takes two people minimum.

So you think we don't have a deep historical background in racism that continues to this day? As late as now we still have no federal law against lynching! State laws yes, but nothing federal.

"Since at least 1900 the House and Senate have repeatedly failed to pass such a bill," said the New York Times. "The bills were consistently blocked, shelved or ignored, and the passage of time has rendered anti-lynching legislation increasingly symbolic. There is now a house bill called the Emmet Till Anti-lynching Act."  It, at long last, has has bi-partisan support, something that hasn't happen until now.

Isn't it odd that the two 'most outcast' (my term) races in the United States are the American Indians from whom we stole this country and the blacks who were brought here against their will to do the bidding of white masters as slaves?

This is all relevant stuff as we come to a newer dawning of Black Lives Matter. Let's pray that sticks or we are doomed as a people of God, or not, and as a country.

BLACK LIVES MATTER!