Talk:And you are lynching Negroes/GAR

GA Reassessment

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This article has some quite serious Neutral Point of View issues. Virtually all the sources come from Western conservative outlets, which results in an article that paints this phrase as something that was merely "a sign of how bankrupt and dishonest Soviet propagandists were" (a direct quote used in the article from a far-right, anti-black outlet).

It does not mention that the tu quoque rejoinder has been so long-lived for the obvious reason that the situation of African Americans has remained a constant weak point of American democracy and ideals for half a century. The article does not contextualise the phrase within the history of Soviet and wider Eastern Bloc support for African-American civil rights, (which is well-documented and considered by several academics as a key driver in the United States making political changes). Most worryingly, it covers the topic without engaging with a single source from an African-American studies perspective. That is absolutely essential to a balanced and quality article on this subject. This article currently does not meet points 3 and 4 of the Wikipedia:Good article criteria (addresses the main aspects of the topic and represents viewpoints fairly and without editorial bias, giving due weight to each).

In order to achieve a neutral point of view and cover the main aspects of the topic, the following must be added to the article:

1. The background of the connections between African-Americans and Eastern socialists
2. The context of the phrase within the Eastern Blocs broader pro-African-American foreign policy
3. The role this played in the civil rights movement and the American government's foreign policy considerations on this matter
4. The state of lynching in America during the period of the phrase's usage, and the continuation of the phrase's usage in the East to refer to ongoing mass racial violence in the United States

Specifically what needs adding is the background and context to the phrase, which is the long involvement of Russian and Soviet people and governments in African-American race discrimination in the US. More can be read about this at academic sources such as this. Among the founders of the NAACP, were William English Walling and his Soviet wife Anna Strunsky, Romanian socialist Henry Moskowitz and of course W. E. B. Du Bois (who had extensive connections with socialists in the East and West). The phrase that is the topic of this article came into being as a product of extensive coverage of African-American issues in Russian-language press, which galvanised connections between African-Americans and people in the Eastern Bloc (Slate article noting this).

The phrase not an empty rejoinder, it was an expression of solidarity between those in the Eastern Bloc and African-Americans – a key plank of the Eastern Bloc's ideological warfare against America and its capitalist model. The phrase was part of a wider theme of pro-African-American expression in the Eastern Bloc (see here). This had profound effects for the civil rights movement. Malcolm X and the Black Panther Party declared themselves socialists and received audiences with governments of communist countries. Academics such as the one linked above have noted that the propaganda campaign (of which this phrase was a significant part) played a role in the success of the civil rights movements, as the American government saw it as a way of diffusing both an internal threat to the country's ideology and a rebuttal to the East's foreign policy efforts. After that point, Americans referred to these changes to suggest that the statement "And you are lynching Negroes" was no longer relevant. It should be stated that American writers' dismissals preceded the actual end of lynching (see Lynching of Michael Donald in 1981). SFB 20:19, 31 May 2020 (UTC)

@Sillyfolkboy: Is this ready for a close yet? AIRcorn (talk) 21:40, 22 October 2020 (UTC)

Hi SFB, there has been no response to your comments, and that aside the prose does not seem up to GA standard for me, so would you like to close this as a delist? CMD (talk) 15:38, 19 May 2021 (UTC)

@Chipmunkdavis: Thanks for the reminder! I missed the previous ping. I have now delisted the article as the issues largely remain. The bias is such that the article will need a full rewrite rather than a simple addition of further material. SFB 16:28, 19 May 2021 (UTC)

Requires unbiased Editing

The article is US centric garbage. Linuswaters (talk) 09:17, 7 June 2020 (UTC)