untethered

A month or so ago I first noticed the camouflage netting screening a pair of cars just off the street–Barbur Boulevard about a mile south of downtown where it skirts the West Hills, where I once saw a pair of lost deer loping down the street in daytime traffic trying to find their way back into the woods–more like two months already. Someone had fashioned a crude structure out of scavenged logs and brush nearby that blends into the backdrop.

As the trees went bare this year they revealed a little village of a dozen or so tents following a dirt road up into the hills; the camouflage netting is now a gate where the trail opens to the road–probably one of the public hiking trails the city has marked out that traverse city and greenway alike–and behind the netting in mud deep enough to make me wonder if it’s stuck there’s an SUV blocking the way. Three more cars are parked near this entrance, illegally; one of them is late-model, shiny. Certainly better than the ride in which I’m passing by.

“You’re the one with the winning smile” I later said to the stranger with whom I’d had a brief conversation before. She took it with ease–well beyond her blushing years no physical reaction was going to betray her. She was a woman transitioning from pretty to “handsome”; her default expression was open, friendly and curious, and her smile, served with a certain tilt of her head, seemed to lean forward and greet you inquisitively. Her hair was styled in the fifties’ ducktail fashion preferred by butch lesbians, evangelicals and the menopausal.

“Certainly someone’s told you that before.” I said, deliberately looking away and speaking absently, eager to not convey I was Flirting With Intent.

“Before masks.” She said.

“I know. I hate them.” I said. We talked about the mask mandate here, which Oregon, of course, is trying to make permanent. Somehow we ended up talking about the George Floyd riots. I told her part of my story, of having witnessed what’s happened here. She revealed she’d come to Portland from Minneapolis, and had witnessed the rioting there. I proceeded gingerly–this is Portland–and complained in as non-political a tone as I could about some of the depredations coming as a consequence.

She was enlivened and eager to ask my impressions of it all, as if this was a rare conversation. I offered my opinions unvarnished but incomplete, wary of going too far even as a sort of enthusiasm–the enthusiasm of the witness–drew me on like an undertow.

For her part she reported seeing out-of-state license plates all over Minneapolis during the first days of rioting, when police had mostly abandoned the streets. At about four days in authorities decided to close the freeways into the city–I don’t remember learning this in the news–and she found herself scrambling back into town to avoid being stranded.

She told me she came here to be with her adult son, who’s found his way to helplessness like so many. She shook her head wearily:

“He’s Norwegian, from Minnesota…he came straight here, right into this and…this all is just…for him it’s…he just can’t help himself…I don’t know…” She groped to express something, about his impressionability when confronted with–was she talking about covid or the riots? No, she was talking about Portland. Her naive son, earnest and liberal as his home state, had gone directly from that place still mostly insulated and white, to Portland, just as the age of authoritarian black fetishism was launched in a months-long orgy of rioting and grotesque kitsch that still befouls our walls and buildings.

I had the feeling of coming across a reliable first-hand account of something I’d known only in legend, the midwestern square-headed Scandinavian ethno-masochist. I couldn’t help it:

“Is he really into the rules?”

“Very much.” She said.

We fell silent upon that.

The Portland Business Alliance is one of the few organized opponents of the fundamental changes wreaked upon Portland in the nearly two years now of radical progressive dominance effected by months of anarchist rioting and intimidation of political opponents, with some help from, ironically, law enforcement in the form of Multnomah County District Attorney Micheal Schimdt.

So it’s the PBA that brings us this poll showing a profound lack of faith in Portland’s direction and government:

PORTLAND, Ore. (KOIN) — A new poll of Portland metro voters shows the top concerns are crime and homelessness and most said the region is the wrong track.

The poll from the Portland Business Alliance showed a decided shift in attitudes since 2017. Andrew Hoan, the head of the Portland Business Alliance, said he was surprised by the results.

He told KOIN 6 News the survey makes it clear what people think is wrong with the city. Nearly half said homelessness is the top concern and shared their views on what should be done.

Nearly 88% of voters polled by DHM research say the quality of life in Portland is getting worse. That’s up from 47% in 2017.

Most surveyed support requiring people living outside to instead live in shelters or designated camping sites. And most said downtown Portland was either much less safe or somewhat less safe than a year ago.

Meanwhile, 90% of voters “strongly” or “somewhat” support funding to require police officers to wear body-worn cameras, which Portland is currently beginning to implement.

Police abolitionists have been unenthusiastic about police body-worn cameras, likely because they tend to result in fewer overall complaints against police; this from a cop-friendly source:

Quicker resolution. Body-worn cameras may lead to a faster resolution of citizen complaints and lawsuits that allege excessive use of force and other forms of officer misconduct. Investigations of cases that involve inconsistent accounts of the encounter from officers and citizens are often found to be “not sustained” and are subsequently closed when there is no video footage nor independent or corroborating witnesses. This, in turn, can decrease the public’s trust and confidence in law enforcement and increase perceptions that claims of abuse brought against officers will not be properly addressed. Video captured by body-worn cameras may help corroborate the facts of the encounter and result in a quicker resolution

But there are other reasons for police abolitionists to distrust body cameras:

Corroborating evidence. Footage captured may also be used as evidence in arrests or prosecutions. Proponents have suggested that video captured by body-worn cameras may help document the occurrence and nature of various types of crime, reduce the overall amount of time required for officers to complete paperwork for case files, corroborate evidence presented by prosecutors, and lead to higher numbers of guilty pleas in court proceedings.

The body cams are now being implemented finally at the behest of the Department of Justice, as a condition of lifting a long-standing federal injunction settling a pattern-and-practice lawsuit with Obama’s DOJ. Against soft opposition Eric Holder’s enforcer Thomas Perez forced reforms regarding the Portland Police Bureau’s treatment of the mentally ill in 2014. The city was to labor under federal injunction until 2021; then George Floyd happened.

The settlement agreement in effect since then and requiring annual review deserves a brief revisiting. After a Portland cop shot and killed a mentally ill man in 2010 Oregon Senator Ron Wyden and Congressman Earl Blumenaur sent this letter to Eric Holder’s DOJ requesting a federal investigation. Portland’s police commissioner and city council member Dan Saltzman joined them with his own. The result was all but a given; the chief of police (and now Multnomah County Sheriff) Mike Reese, something of a woke cop, was making reforms before the settlement came down and moved aggressively to implement recommended changes.

Before policing broke down in the city the changes were visible in police encounters with our ever-present and growing mentally ill population; more than once I saw three or so cops conducting careful interviews, standing a little further away (social distancing!) and deliberately assuming a less aggressive posture. But I don’t see that any more because I don’t see the police engaging with people at all any more; but I do see more of the mentally ill now, shooting up on the streets and sleeping beneath gaudy BLM murals on boarded-up businesses.

Despite the city’s eager compliance and following Biden’s election the Department of Justice turned its (already feeble) attention away from the anarchist mobs that spent a month in 2020 attacking the (still barricaded) federal courthouse here and decided to apply the settlement ruling–on engagement with the mentally ill–to engagement with rioting antifa. No one uttered the joke that must have occurred to many: it was no stretch to apply an order on the treatment of the mentally ill to the treatment of antifa rioters. One could say the only difference is between personal and organized crazy.

Months before the city was set to be released from the federal injunction aggressive DOJ attorneys demanded a “plan of remediation” for how the police handle violent protests, uncritically accepting the anarchist line of “6,000” incidents of police use of force during the riots (every one unjustified, no doubt). The federal boot did not lift but applied a little extra pressure and forced, among other things, police body cams, which police abolitionists may come to regret.

They are very much aware of that. Jo Ann Hardesty, city commissioner and leader of the police abolitionists, had to be convinced by friendly DOJ attorneys to support cameras, and the abolitionists are now lobbying to establish control over the footage, which is where the fight now lies.

The Portland City Council voted last Wednesday to take over the city’s designation of historic properties to allow in more development that will densify and diversify Portland’s historic neighborhoods.

The changes include more flexibility for developers to build affordable housinog in historic districts and adapt existing historic properties to accommodate more residents. They also require a stricter review of proposals to demolish property within those districts…

Under the new rules, the City Council would locally decide which landmarks or neighborhoods are historically significant and given special protections under city code. Until now, those protections were conferred to properties listed on the National Register of Historic Places, which is administered at a national level.

Some proponents of the code amendments said it would allow the city to recognize landmarks significant to communities whose history in Portland has received little recognition — including the city’s Black, Indigenous and LGBTQ communities.

“I’m eager for a new era of historic inclusivity,” said Commissioner Carmen Rubio, who also oversees the Bureau of Planning and Sustainability.

The new rules will allow more housing density in historic districts than a typical Portland neighborhood, by permitting multiple homes on the same property or multi-unit plexes not otherwise allowed by the zoning code. It will also make it easier to build rent-restricted affordable housing in historic districts for low-income residents.

The changes were four years in the making and will go into effect on March 1…

In the near future, he said, the city expects to discuss making historic designations for places that are significant to Portland’s LGBTQ community.

And while there are no immediate affordable housing projects that have been proposed, he said there are a few ongoing developments that offer a blueprint for how developers might use existing buildings and adjacent vacant property to build affordable housing. He cited the Anna Mann house, a historic building in the Kerns neighborhood that is being redeveloped as apartments for low-income residents.

The Anna Mann House project is adapting what was originally the Anna Lewis Mann Old People’s Home, donated by settlers and which resembles a well-tended insane asylum, into housing to give 128 low income residents access to the resources of an affluent neighborhood:

The Anna Mann House is a historic Portland property located in the amenity-rich Kerns neighborhood, adjacent to Laurelhurst. Redevelopment of the Anna Mann House will provide low-income households, including immigrants and refugees and other communities of color, with the opportunity to live in a location packed with supportive amenities offered by the Kerns/Laurelhurst area, including grocery stores, highly rated public schools, three city parks (Oregon, Laurelhurst and Grant) and the Northeast Community Center. The site is steps away from the Sandy high-frequency bus line and three-quarters of a mile from the 42nd Avenue MAX station. In addition to bringing much needed affordable housing to the neighborhood, the project will also drastically increase density and ease the impacts of gentrification. Luke-Dorf, Inc., a community based mental health provider, will provide supportive services on site and Immigrant and Refugee Community Organization (IRCO) will provide outreach and referral services. The Anna Man House redevelopment is targeted for completion in three distinct phases: the South Addition in mid-winter 2023, the East Addition in late-winter 2023, and the existing Anna Mann House in early spring 2023.

Portland previously valued and celebrated the settler (read: colonial) history that is now officially anathema and was targeted first with violence by rioters in 2020 and then with legislation by their political allies in power. Politicians wrote into policy the goals and even tactics–such “social justice oriented graffiti” and vandalism–of anarchist rioters. Their means and goals will guide the city in the removal of offensive works as they are identified, as we replace our old history with our new one, which is BIPOC and LGBTQ and Black! all over.

The original draft proposal for the now official Historic Resources Code Project is typical of policy documents now, invoking Equity heavily in pressing for ever-more density and development in “white” neighborhoods and the preservation of black neighborhoods and historic landmarks from gentrification.

People and federal money still migrating to Portland fund the continuing project to remake the city through re-zoning and development despite the city’s hollowed-out downtown core and bruised image. High rise apartment projects, always with a low-income component, are still going up around town. Meanwhile the cost of housing seems unaffected, and Portland is looking at an increase of about ten percent this year–which is “slow” relative to other cities in the US right now, according to the above-linked report. But unlike most of those other cities, Portland saw no declines in the cost of residential real estate during the Covid and George Floyd campaigns despite the collapse of downtown business and retail leases.

The reset proceeds here.

For years Black Lady Judge has been a fixture in film and television, a negro of extra numinousity* and implied wisdom, as part of the more than half-century long and continuing propaganda campaign conveying black people as more capable and humane than they are in real life–the cultural tyranny long preceding the present social and political tyranny it has been essential in effecting, and which is now wildly, Wakanda-ly, out of control.

Those of us of a certain age have long known Black Lady Judge, near relation to Black Police Chief (gruff but fair) and Black High School Principal (familiar enough to be parodied, when such things were still allowed): here she is pursing her lips at an insolent attorney; there she is raising her eyebrows and lowering her glasses to warn a line of questioning is straying, but she’ll “allow it” for the moment. See her? Serenely dignified, she always has the best posture.

We grew up with this cast of virtuous characters; for our own good we had to be nurtured on this noble lie. So goes the charitable version–that it’s mere stupidity and not malice by which it was decided the least accomplished of us must be elevated, celebrated and privileged, precisely because of that lack of accomplishment, because it’s our fault, you see, because racism.

The remedy to the mediocrity we’ve somehow forced on black people has long been to ignore mediocrity and force blacks onto institutions, consequences be damned (whatever the case they won’t be known, since to suggest they exist would be racist). Biden’s clown-crash of an administration is a case study.

The practice of equal representation resembles the practice of a cargo cult, whereby the image of ability and character is expected to spontaneously produce the real thing–taking no account of how the real thing is produced, or even what it actually is. This notion occurred to me when considering the musical Hamilton. The rapidity with which that recent cultural phenomenon has lapsed into the quaint, well on its way to being considered problematic, follows the overall course of society–condescension and tokenism within “white systems” and values has yielded less, not more, peace and more, not less, anti-white resentment. Access to the institutions gives way to their destruction.

And we had every reason to see it coming–through the decades Hollywood and New York have been consciously applying a strategy on behalf of black Americans: we’ll-fake-it-til-you-make-it. They’re still faking it and blacks are still not making it. As blacks cannot be found wanting–not against anything–naturally our institutions and ideals must be found wanting. This is precisely where we are–though it would be naive to think, still, that the welfare of blacks is the end goal here. No; it’s the destruction of the institutions that is the end and black people–despite the religiosity of their worship–the means. But that’s a longer story.

Long before today’s seemingly sudden tyranny of color one reigned on TV. First you can’t represent things as they are, then you can’t have them as they are.

All of this came to mind when I saw the latest clown-burst taking out another institutional pillar:

President Joe Biden delivered remarks Thursday on the retirement of Supreme Court Justice Stephen Breyer – and confirmed he would select a black woman to be Breyer’s replacement, which prompted Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell to immediately stoke fears the president would select someone endorsed by the ‘radical left.’ 

‘Our process is going to be rigorous. I will select a nominee worthy of Justice Breyer’s legacy of excellence and decency,’ Biden said. ‘While I’ve been studying candidates’ backgrounds and writings, I’ve made no decision except one: the person I will nominate will be someone of extraordinary qualifications, character, experience and integrity.’ 

‘And that person will be the first black woman ever nominated to the Supreme Court,’ the president added…

Biden said it was ‘long overdue’ and noted how he had made that commitment during the 2020 campaign – as part of a pledge to secure a key endorsement from South Carolina Rep. Jim Clyburn, the most powerful black member of Congress. ‘And I will keep that commitment,’ Biden said. 

Whoever the nominee is, she’s got big shoes to fill. Black Lady Judge wears clown-size.

*This link is to an essay I wouldn’t normally recommend, for it’s actually kind of awful, but the “numinous negro” insight it made must be recognized–just, in reading it now it’s hopelessly naive and wrong in its argument; its original full title: “The Numinous Negro: His importance in our lives; why he is fading“–the author had no clue.

Ten years ago today I triggered Seattle with this post on MLK Day in the progressive-decadent free weekly The Stranger after someone unwisely gifted me a week guest-blogging there. Life goes so fast.

Washington State has moved to limit elective surgeries, ostensibly in anticipation of a covid surge

WASHINGTON (KPTV) – Patient volumes at some Northwest hospitals are soaring with the latest surge in COVID-19 cases and health care staffing shortages.

Washington Governor Jay Inslee announced a pause on non-urgent medical procedures for four weeks to get the state through the predicted peak in hospitalizations. Some hospitals in both Washington and Oregon have already started scaling back non-emergency procedures to help with the resource strain.

“This is difficult, but it is a necessary decision to make sure people get access that is life-saving right now,” Gov. Inslee said during a news conference Thursday.

Inslee said staffing problems stem from both an increase in COVID-19 patients needing care and more health care workers getting sick…

Governor Inslee’s emergency order – announced Thursday – gives physicians the discretion to determine what is a “non-urgent” procedure.

In what has become standard in news reports about Covid, KPTV above makes no attempt to quantify the proportion–how much is it too few workers and how much is it too many sick? It appears to be standard practice to deliberately obscure the details to always create the impression of Hospitals Overwhelmed by Covid Patients.

Inslee said staffing problems stem from both an increase in COVID-19 patients needing care and more health care workers getting sick.

Washington State Hospital Association Communications Director Tim Pfarr said the situation has escalated at some Washington hospitals to the point of “crisis levels of staffing,” meaning medical facilities are asking employees to come back from sick leave “sooner than normal.”

Meanwhile here the Oregon Health Authority, which oversees the state’s medicaid program and has its own office of diversity and inclusion, of course, was not lax in September 2020 in taking advantage of the crisis to promote anti-white bias; at the height of the Covid hysteria OHA announced it would write “equity” into decisions of life and death (boldface added throughout):

Since 2014, Oregon health care providers, ethicists and emergency preparedness experts have invested significant time and effort to plan for this scenario as captured within Oregon’s former crisis care guidance. In September 2020, the Oregon Health Authority (OHA) announced its decision to no longer reference or depend on previously established guidance, due to its potential for perpetuating discrimination and health inequities. Over the past month OHA has begun meetings with community partners and health care experts in order to co-create a new and inclusive process with the goal of developing revised crisis care guidance centered on health equity. Further engagement and planning are underway to co-create that process.

(…)

I’m beginning to sense a little hostility here, guys.

A gunshot victim found in a tent in North Portland set the city’s annual homicide record at 86 early this morning, but with an accelerating race to the finish, his hold on the title is in no way assured with just a day to go:

If the man’s death is confirmed to be a homicide, the incident would mark Portland’s 86th homicide of 2021, a record, and the city’s fourth such killing in less than a week.

Two of the homicides came last weekend.

In the first, a man was shot dead Saturday in North Portland’s Eliot neighborhood. Then a man unintentionally shot and killed his cousin after getting into a dispute with others in the parking lot of a Southeast Portland strip club early Sunday, according to police and prosecutors.

Black parents really should give “the Talk” about strip clubs; maybe they’re too busy staffing and patronizing them to make time.

Record traffic accidents have been recorded so far this holiday season due to inclement weather, though I’m finding total traffic fatalities for the year not so easy to find. I suspect the city at least will establish new records there, following a national pattern.

Earnest liberal Oregon farm boy Nicholas Kristof leads the field in fundraising for Oregon’s next gubernatorial election and is attracting other earnest liberals hoping to moderate their fiery progressive allies:

Democratic candidate for Oregon governor Nicholas Kristof has now raised more than $2.5 million, far more than his two more established competitors in the Democratic primary, House Speaker Tina Kotek (D-Portland) and State Treasurer Tobias Read.

Kristof, the former New York Times reporter and columnist who grew up in Yamhill, has reeled in checks from a number of prominent sources, most of them from out of state. One interesting name in his latest haul: Brian W. Ross, a U of O grad turned Wall Street software entrepreneur, who gave Kristof $7,500. (Ross is married to another journalist with Oregon roots: Ann Curry, the longtime NBC reporter and former Today Show host who grew up in Ashland and graduated from the University of Oregon.)

Of perhaps more note to Democratic primary voters: a $100 check from former U.S. Rep. Les AuCoin (D-Ore.), who represented Oregon’s 1st Congressional District for nine terms from 1975 to 1993. AuCoin supported Gov. Kate Brown in 2018. His contribution to Kristof, though modest, is another signal of the voter dissatisfaction that has buoyed Kristof and former state Sen. Betsy Johnson (D-Scappoose), who is running as a nonaffiliated candidate and has raised $2.9 million this year.

Tina Kotek is a BLM-antifa fellow traveler and Read is a former Nike shoe designer who succeeded Ted Wheeler as state treasurer. He also carries the white guy handicap, despite the promising name, Tobias. For the dominant radical progressive faction in Oregon, enjoying favorable media gaslighting a shell-shocked public, a moderate of course simply will not do but–statewide at least–the public is quietly, I suspect, panicking about the radical direction of things, and Kristof is probably about as far to the right a correction as we’ll be allowed to make–for one thing, the media won’t commit to taking him down at all costs, as they would if the state’s pathetic Republican Party managed to nominate a Ron DeSantis.

How the radicals deal with the Kristof challenge will be interesting to see.

On December 10 of this month a Multnomah County judge sentenced a man to ten years in prison for fighting with antifa on streets the Portland police had abandoned in August of 2020. Deputy District Attorney Nathan Vasquez convinced a jury to convict Alan Swinney on 11 of 12 assault counts, two of them level II assault, drawing the long, consecutive terms Judge Heidi Moawad leveled on the hapless Swinney for shooting paintballs and pointing a gun at black bloc anarchists chasing right wing “patriots” out of town.

The ambitious prosecutor out of woke Multnomah District Attorney Mike Schmidt’s office and the liberal judge combined to use an Oregon law from 1994 establishing mandatory minimums–part of the wave of legislation around President Clinton’s 1994 crime bill now deemed racist and which progressives attempted to overturn the same summer of 2020 for which Swinney committed his supposed crimes–to effect a highly selective political prosecution criminalizing right wing dissent.

I was on scene for both days and may have captured one or two of the lesser offenses on camera (indeed, I swallowed some of Mr Swinney’s bear mace myself that day) and the dynamic you see in play on both days, of Swinney’s smaller group being chased off the streets, somehow was lost on the jury. I’ll be posting a longer analysis of this deeply disturbing trial later.

Innoculate, Infect:

The Boys and Girls Club, for the moment still bearing the name like a relic of our evil past when trans folx were hunted in the streets alongside Blacks! and immigrants, is, in Portland, where random tendrils of Globo Homo converge, so they’re hosting a combined Kwanza celebration and vax clinic. The word “chimera” will have to serve double duty, here in its original meaning as monster combining elements of different animals and as hopeless cause of the imagination. Chimera.

No Vaccination No Education:

Oregon State University is requiring students to get booster shots while acknowledging the lack of necessity:

“The university’s decision is intentional,” said Becky Johnson, OSU’s interim president. “We are mindful that classrooms, where students and faculty are vaccinated and wear face coverings, have not been a significant source of virus spread.”

School officials continued saying they believe their campus can avoid a COVID-19 surge as 93% of their students and faculty are vaccinated.

Excuse me, I didn’t go to university, but by “intentional” does she mean unnecessary? Because what follows certainly says as much. In which case she seems to be admitting this is a gesture, as part of the broader effort to vaccinate the world, and has nothing to do with protecting students or staff.

OCT 27, 2007
POINT DEFERENCE, WA (UNS*) — Civil rights leaders in this Seattle suburb are up in arms over what they say is the latest incident in a nation-wide trend of hate crimes involving the public display of nooses, a symbol of lynching in the Jim Crow south.

A noose was discovered hanging from a tree in a remote corner of a wooded park early Friday morning by two children, ages twelve and fourteen. Doug Beedle, head of Seattle’s NAACP chapter, said he is considering seeking damages against the city for not moving more quickly to deal with the apparent hate-crime.

“The city is engaged in a white-wash, treating this as a minor incident. If we hadn’t been notified by an alert citizen, the whole thing would’ve been swept under the rug and treated as something other than what it was.” Mr. Beedle did not rule out filing a complaint with the U.S. Civil Rights Commission. “We’re opening a dialogue with the city, but if they refuse to come around to our way of thinking, we’re prepared to take it to the next level. No justice, no peace.”

The childrens’ mother, Misty Handringer, who is white, tearfully related that she initially didn’t realize the significance of the noose. “At first all I could think about was the other aspect of it. I’m not proud of this, but I was more concerned about the fact that the kids had found a dead body. I was mortified when what was gong on was explained to me. I really thought we were above that sort of thing here. I’m not very proud of my community right now. I guess nowhere is safe.”

Police say it appears the man, who is white, acted alone in stringing up the noose before using it to hang himself. Officials haven’t ruled out bringing posthumous charges.

“Allowing this to simply die with the perpetrator would be wrong. Suicide is just the sort of transgressive act that brings out the underlying racism inherent in our society.” Tanyika Balder-Dash, professor of Afro-American studies at Northwest College and author of The Myth of Merit, said, explaining why the man chose the inflammatory racial symbol for his apparent suicide. “People feel liberated to express their darkest impulses.”

The children who discovered the noose are receiving counseling. “First we have to make them aware of the trauma they’ve suffered, then we can begin to deal with it.” Professor Balder-Dash said. “Most distressing of all is that these kids have no idea about the profound image of hatred and oppression they encountered. People don’t realize that racism is in fact far worse now than it ever was, due to faltering awareness. I fear we are allowing this image of America’s racist past to slip into the past.”
A march is planned for this Monday. The man remains unidentified.

(*Untethered News Services; Additional reporting for this story was provided by Dennis Dale, who is white.)

In related news, the U.S. Army has retroactively legalized lynching.