Squad member Rep. Ayanna Pressley (D-Mass., she/her pronouns in bio) came out September 10 with a banger of an X post, weirdly lamenting the “strange fruit” hanging from trees — presumably referencing black lynching victims based on the context — across the country and “demanding a federal investigation NOW so we can stop modern-day lynchings.”
Black folks are being found hanged in America.
— Congresswoman Ayanna Pressley (@RepPressley) September 10, 2026
This is a national crisis and we CANNOT stand by while strange fruit hangs from trees across the country.
We're demanding a federal investigation NOW so we can stop modern-day lynchings. https://t.co/IfiRiYOMNC
Related: Yale ‘Fascism Professor’ Flees Country to Escape Trump’s Fourth Reich
Pressley's comrade, Latinx Social Justice™ harlot, the shame of Westchester County, and aspirational glass-ceiling-shattering Latinx president AOC weighed in as well, urging a “stop to this racial terror.”
This year, there have already been 10 reported hangings of Black people in the U.S.
— Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (@RepAOC) September 10, 2026
I’m proud to have signed onto @RepPressley ‘s letter to address these widespread modern-day lynchings and put a stop to this racial terror. https://t.co/ISo20mbLyg
So-called civil rights attorney Ben Crump, whose livelihood depends on ginning up racial animus, also jumped into the fray, linking to an article from BLM-esque rag Capital B News.
At least 10 Black people have been found hanging from trees. For Black families, these deaths carry the weight of a painful history, and many are still searching for answers.
— Ben Crump (@AttorneyCrump) September 12, 2026
Families deserve thorough investigations! We cannot look away! https://t.co/pIVRGoqetR
Via Capital B News (emphasis added):
A Kentucky family still awaits answers to what happened to a young mother of four in Mississippi. A teenage immigrant is reported missing in North Carolina and is found dead 11 days later. A young man traveled to a music festival in Michigan and was found dead on a trail. In separate incidents, families were left with few details after the deaths of two 21-year-olds in Georgia.
From the Deep South to the Midwest, there have been at least 10 reports of Black people found dead hanging from trees in the past year. In some instances, police have not indicated whether they suspect foul play. In other cases, the deaths have been ruled a suicide*.
The suspicious circumstances of a loved one’s death and the response from authorities have left many Black families and observers questioning the investigations. For some, people found dead hanging from trees are a reminder of the thousands of Black people lynched in America and the cover-ups that often followed.
Law enforcement’s disproportionately low rate of closing a homicide investigation when the victim is Black versus white also makes it hard to take the police’s preliminary reports at face value, a psychologist and a sociologist told Capital B*.
Historian Keisha Blain said Black people’s suspicions are rooted in the racial terror of the 19th and 20th centuries.
“For generations, Black communities have lived with the knowledge that Black people could be subjected to violence in ways that were not always acknowledged, investigated, or treated with the seriousness they deserved by law enforcement,” said Blain, a professor at Brown University. “This history is one reason human rights activist Ida B. Wells passionately advocated for federal protection of Black citizens and for greater accountability.”
*What you’ll notice is the lack of any outright assertion, or even any evidence, that any of these deaths, which are mostly suicides, have any racial motivation whatsoever.
Because they don’t.
But the professional race hustlers really want a racial angle, which is why they have to insinuate, in the absence of evidence, as the article above does, that the (racist) police are covering up hate crimes.
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How can we know for certain that mobs of white racists aren’t lynching blacks?
Because if such an event occurred even one time — even in the most remote backwoods of Missouri, if there was even a shred of circumstantial evidence that a white person had lynched a black person anywhere in America — we would literally never hear the end of it.
It’d be George Floyd 2.0 on steroids.
Al Sharpton would be down there in two shakes of a lamb’s tail with an MSNOW camera crew, a bullhorn, and the entire Congressional Black Caucus re-enacting the Selma March.
Related: MSNBC News Actor, Race Scholar ‘Confront the First Amendment’s Dark History’
Fortunately — and you won’t hear comment on this from the likes of AOC — cops did crack one of the unsolved “lynching” cases on Friday, arresting an inconveniently black man with a decidedly non-Anglo name called Jarques Ratliff for the crime.
Via CBS News (emphasis added, mugshot in article):
Mississippi police have arrested a man in the death of Tasia Fortune, a Black woman found hanging from a tree last month.
Jackson Police Chief RaShall Brackney said at a news conference Friday that police had secured search and arrest warrants for Jarques Ratliff and arrested him when they encountered him walking on the street. Brackney said Ratliff had an "association" with Fortune but would not disclose details about it at this time.
Ratliff, 51, was arrested on a charge of murder, police said.
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