Yesterday one of my classes took a field trip to the Chicago Historical Society to see the exhibit Without Sanctuary: Lynching Photography in America.

Small towns had community photographers who took pictures of important events--weddings, picnics and lynchings. Beginning in the early 1900's, printing technology had advanced enough that it was easy and cheap to print postcards so these community photographers would print up cards as souvenirs.

Souvenirs. The lynchings attracted audiences. Some of the photos have children standing in the front row of spectators, smiling proudly for the camera. Railroads sometimes ran specialty excursion trains to allow the maximum number of people a chance to observe.

I have to say that I thought I knew what lynching was and that was that. It was chilling to see this exhibit. At the end is a rack filled with hundreds and hundreds of cards. The card I took reads:

I will remember ED SILISBEE LYNCHED JANUARY 20, 1900 FORT SCOTT, KANSAS

After I was done I went to the lobby to wait for my fellow students. Rhonda was there, an African American woman who announced the first week of class that she was sick of all the complaining about Katrina--people have a responsibility to take care of themselves, to save money in the event of an emergency. If those people failed to plan, they have no one to blame but themselves.

Rhonda was looking at a brochure about Segway tours. I told her that I had ridden a Segway in Toronto and, after making small talk about high-end scooters, she asked me what I thought of the exhibit.

After I said my bit, she said that she didn't go into the exhibit and that she thought it was wrong to focus on a single side of lynching.

I hadn't really thought of lynching as being a nuanced, multi-sided affair so I asked for more information. She explained that she simply could not believe that black people didn't seek retribution. Her contention was that there was, in fact, a parallel series of black people lynching whites, it has just gone under publicized.

Remembering last week's lesson with Jane Feltes of This American Life, I asked the magic question: "So what do you make of that?"

She said that some races were bloodthirsty and took pictures; other races were subtle and left no trace.

My other questions went nowhere...how could I find out more about this secret history of parallel lynching? ("certain people have certain information") Have I never heard of this because I'm a white guy ("probably").

It was such a peculiar conversation. It was like pondering why no one ever talks about the millions of people that the Jews killed in Europe during the 1930s and 1940s. Maybe because THAT OTHER SIDE DIDN'T HAPPEN AND DOESN'T EXIST?!?

I can understand why someone might choose not to see the exhibit--it's horrifying, that's the point obviously. I had to turn off THE CONTROL ROOM because of the video of children who were injured but not yet dead from American Bombings...I have a pretty low threshold for seeing gruesome stuff.

I think it would be foolish to say that I didn't want to watch THE CONTROL ROOM because of 9/11..."they" killed us, we exact revenge, etc.

But it would be ludicrous to say that actually, Iraqi militants kill U.S. children all the time; that there is a parallel history of killing our civillians that is just being hushed up.