Re: Flames. On the side of my face.
Here is

totalreadr's comment about Emmett Till "over on terri's lj":

Aaaaand now I'm going to rant at you. Sorry; sensitive subject.

that child had the absolute, unmitigated gall to whistle at a white woman.

This really bothers me. No one deserves to be beaten to death. Emmett Till's murderers should have been put away forever. But wolf whistling is sexual harassment. Don't imply it's nothing.

A wolf whistle is a *threat*. It's about "I can hurt you because I'm a man and you're a woman." It's *not* about "I think you're cute." It's a sexually-charged threat.

Emmett Till's murder was horrible, but it isn't an endpoint.

You might be thinking that Emmett's behavior was "just teenage bravado" -- but that's what teen male bravado *is*: showing off the power of your newly-acquired manhood. If Emmett chose to show off his male power over a white woman, he chose to pit male privilege against white privilege. Neither privilege should exist.

Please don't minimize the harm done by either of them.