Hale's discussion of lynchings in Chapter five and Emmett Till's documentary adds a new dimension to the overlying question in the course: What does race do, regardless of what it is, and to what extent can it be considered a technology?
Lynchings allow us to consider how the white female body was used to "[ensure] the separation of all southern life into whiteness and blackness" (P. 202). In this way, we could say that femininity was also used as a technology. By asserting white femininity as something pure and in need of protection (because black female bodies were clearly not given the same security), white men were able to assert their power over all other bodies. Black men, women, and families were handicapped by the racial violence. White women were controlled, too, in that their sexual piety, their alleged need for such brutal guard, was a crucial part of subjugating black people as a whole.
- Samantha
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