Hard passage of anti-lynching bill reflects decay of U.S. political system: NYT

NEW YORK, April 2 (Xinhua) -- While the United States was celebrating the passage and signing of an anti-lynching bill, it should reflect on the fact that the political system was the primary obstacle to protecting the lives and livelihoods of its own citizens, reported The New York Times on Friday.

U.S. President Joe Biden on Tuesday signed the Emmett Till Anti-lynching Act to make lynching a federal crime. Devised by a group of Black lawmakers in the House and Senate, the anti-lynching legislation came into being after more than 200 failed attempts in a span of over 100 years.

"A lynching is more than a violent act meant for a single individual. Past and present, lynchings are meant to intimidate an entire community -- to reinforce hierarchies of race and class through brutal acts of communal violence," said the newspaper in its opinion article titled "This Is Why It Took More Than 100 Years to Get an Anti-Lynching Bill."

Within the American political system, "Southern lawmakers acted as a bloc, both in Congress and within the Democratic Party, where they continued to reside and to which they would hitch their political loyalties until well after the Second World War," said the report.

"The South, when voting as a bloc, could veto any nominee deemed hostile to its interests. Within Congress, control of committees could kill legislation that threatened white Southern power and autonomy before it reached the floor, or force lawmakers outside the South to bend to their preferences," added the report.