page 100: When some particularly nasty murder was reported, the Negroes said it was Winnie Ruth. They said that because Winnie Ruth was white and so were the victims. It was their way of explaining what they believed was white madness -- crimes planned and executed in a truly lunatic manner against total strangers. Such murders could only be committed by a fellow lunatic of the race and Winnie Ruth Judd fit the description. They believed firmly that members of their own race killed one another for good reasons: violation of another's turf (a man is found with somebody else's wife); refusal to observe the laws of hospitality (a man reaches into a friend's pot of mustards and snatches out the meat); or verbal insults impugnating their virility, honesty, humanity, and mental health. More important, they believed the crimes were committed in the heat of passion: anger, jealousy, loss of face, and so on. Bizarre killings amused them, unless of course the victim was one of their own.
Questions:1) How is killing someone because they insult your honesty justifiable? If someone insulted your humanity and then you killed them, wouldn't their insult have been right on target?
2) Is Guitar's murder of Pilate (and his indirect murder of Milkman) justifiable, following the above code?
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1) I personally only think murder is justifiable when another person is physically trying to kill you first. That is only justifiable because it's out of self defense. Killing someone for insulting you is not justifiable. Killing people in the army is justifiable, because you are fighting for the protection of your family and country. I believe you should only go to war for self defense though. You should never be the one to start it.
2) Guitar could've chose a better solution to the matter than killing Pilate and Milkman. They weren't trying to kill him so there is no reason Guitar should've killed them no matter how mad he was at them
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