Talk:Attack on John Shillady

This was a lynching

Unsurprisingly, I've gotten pushback on this being a lynching. Here's why I believe lynching is the approrpiate term:

• This was an attack by a group on a person who did not know them.
• Lynchings were by no means all hangings, that was just the ones that got photographed. See the second pargraph of Lynching in the United States.
• The conmunity supported the lynchers.
• Precisely what the victim had or hadn't done was unimportant. Guilt by association.
• Not all lynchings were fatal; see Category:Lynching survivors in the United States. The victim did die of the beating, just not immediately.
• No charges were filed. The perpetrators were proud of it.
• Police did not intervene, although they knew.
• There was a racial motive, even though the victim was white. About 25% of lynching victims were not black.
• The process was extra-legal. The kangaroo "court of inquiry" is seen in other lynchings.

If anyone still contends that this was not a lynching, state here why, otherwise I'm going to change it back. deisenbe (talk) 10:49 am, Today (UTC−5)

He was killed by a mob in an extrajudicial action. The fact that he didn't die immediately is worth discussion.Jacona (talk) 02:00, 31 January 2019 (UTC)

That is simply untrue. Shillady died in 1943. Qwirkle (talk) 11:33, 31 January 2019 (UTC)

Responses by Quirkle

• This wes an attack by a group on a person who did not know them.

...which has absolutely nothing to do with lynching.

• Lynchings were by no means all hangings, that was just the ones that got photographed. See the second pargraph of Lynching in the United States.

Which is falsely ascribing a bad argument to another, and attacking that straw man, a common technique of dishonest polemics.

• The conmunity supported the lynchers.

Classic begging the question.

• Precisely what the victim had or hadn't done was unimportant. Guilt by association.

Which has nothing to do with lynching. Some lynchings occurred for the exact opposite reason, that a mob was so completely convinced of someone’s guilt that they saw lawifying as a waste of time and energy,

• Not all lynchings were fatal; see Category:Lynching survivors in the United States. The victim did die of the beating, just not immediately.

Invoking a small group of self-contradictory articles on Wikipedia doesnt strenthen your case at all. One of the better articles there, James Cameron (activist), points out that he was the survivor of an attemped lynching.

• No charges were filed. The perpetrators were proud of it.

Which has nothing particular to do with lynchings.

• Police did not intervene, although they knew.

Which again, is not peculiar to lynchings. This would make the [Cannonball 500] a lynching.

• There was a racial motive, even though the victim was white. About 25% of lynching victims were not black.

Many lynchings had nothing to do with race; most racial violence wasn’t lynching.

• The process was extra-legal. The kangaroo "court of inquiry" is seen in other lynchings.

...which does not, except in very loose metaphorical senses, make it a lynching.

If anyone still contends that this was not a lynching, state here why, otherwise I'm going to change it back. deisenbe (talk) 15:49, 30 January 2019 (UTC)

Note the objections indented above. Qwirkle (talk) 20:40, 30 January 2019 (UTC)

Do you believe it was an attempted lynching? If not, why not? deisenbe (talk) 21:58, 30 January 2019 (UTC)

I believe that you should Note the objections indented above, and address them before squirting more ink in the water. Qwirkle (talk) 23:14, 30 January 2019 (UTC)

What do reliable sources refer to the incident as? That should inform our title moreso than our OR. Captain Eek ^{Edits Ho Cap'n!} 02:08, 31 January 2019 (UTC)

”Mobbing” or “beating”, mostly. “Attack.” “Whip.” Qwirkle (talk) 03:31, 31 January 2019 (UTC)

Shillady died in 1943, after a continued career

His NYT obit. Note it doesnt even mention the Texas incident, much less make any nonsensical claims about “lynching”. Qwirkle (talk) 12:30, 31 January 2019 (UTC)

• Clearly some of my sources were wrong. Thanks for finding this. deisenbe (talk) 14:14, 31 January 2019 (UTC)

Does every new comment need to be a new section?

It's difficult to discuss anything that way. Here's my contribution to the ongoing problem. It seems strange to me to discuss one aspect of Shillady as an article when there is not an article on Shillady. Why wouldn't "the lynching of" or "the mobbing of" or whatever be a section of John Shillady instead? Jacona (talk) 12:51, 31 January 2019 (UTC)

Because that would be a coatrack. More importantly, it would never be “lynching of...”. You should self-revert your mistaken page move. Qwirkle (talk) 15:47, 31 January 2019 (UTC)

I see the other point has been taken care of. Qwirkle (talk) 15:47, 31 January 2019 (UTC).

You must have misunderstood me. How would having an article about a person, with a section on an event in their life (e.g., attack on x), be coatracking?Jacona (talk) 16:14, 31 January 2019 (UTC)

With these sources, there really couldn’t be an article about the person...and, in fact, it’s questionable whether they would meet Wiki’s notability guideline except for this incident. Qwirkle (talk) 16:42, 31 January 2019 (UTC)

Why would a section be a WP:COATRACK?Jacona (talk) 16:50, 31 January 2019 (UTC)

Because you would have something ostensibly about one thing, a fellow named Shillady, but all actually about...well, “lynchings” seems to be a topic you and DE turn towards, even when the sources and evidence suggests otherwise. Qwirkle (talk) 16:55, 31 January 2019 (UTC)

It would not be coatracking,, because the article would be about John R. Shillady, the first executive director of the NAACP, and it is a significant event in his history that he was attacked, beaten, and run out of town by a mob. Coatracking would be if it were about an attack on someone else. As far as WP:N, we're talking about a significant figure in American history, who would easily meet WP:gng, although a lot of sources from 1918-1920 (his tenure as exec secretary) are no doubt not digitized. If an article about Shillady with a section on this attack would be coatracking, we'd need to eliminate sections completely.Jacona (talk) 17:05, 31 January 2019 (UTC)

"Irish"?

What evidence do we have that John Shillady was an Irish American? Shillady is an English surname. Torchist (talk) 21:33, 27 October 2020 (UTC)

Lots of sources, here’s one.[1]Jacona (talk) 22:27, 27 October 2020 (UTC)

Ok thanks for the link. Looking into this further the reason he has a non-Irish/Anglo surname is because the Shilladys are Protestants from County Down, what the Americans call "Scotch-Irish" (a distinct ethnic group to Irish Americans). Torchist (talk) 01:47, 28 October 2020 (UTC)

Ummm, no. Not all Ulster Prods are “Scotch Irish” when they arrive here. That’s a term for relatively shortly-settled Presbyterian Scots who then in turn emmigrated America (and their descendants), a very narrowly defined group. Some Scots immigrants into Ireland were Episcopalian, and some of them were all but open Catholics. Some of them were Border Reiver families, too.

Dunno the exact path his ancestors took, but the name goes back to Staffordshire, i.e. well into the Midlands. Qwirkle (talk) 19:45, 28 July 2021 (UTC)