Frenzy and Fury

The idea of how fear fuels hysteria and mob mentality leads me to think of football games. This year was my first year cheering in the stands, as opposed to on the sidelines when I was on the cheer team. I was intimidated by the T.C. Line and I was terrified of the deer head. The student section, lead by the T.C. Line, is the perfect example of mob mentality. The T.C. line riles everybody up and gets students to chant things and kiss the deer head. Many students are apprehensive of the TC because of its reputation, so when they come up to kids with the deer head and tell them to kiss it they usually do, out of fear. 
In chapter two in The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, Huck meets up with Tom and other boys in a cave and they plot to become a band of robbers. Tom riles all the boys up with stories and makes the life of a robber seem thrilling and adventurous. This is equivelant to the T.C. line making the student section excited to be at the football game. The boys make a pact, that if a member exposes the gang's secrets their family will be killed and his throat will be cut, this instills fear in the boys. The mob mentality and fear made these boys think that killing and plundering was fun and okay to do. They stop thinking rationally.
During the Civil Rights Movement, both sides expressed mob mentality. One side African Americans and their supporters were rioting, marching, and protesting for their rights. Some of the Civil Rights leaders were a bit extreme, like Malcolm X and the Black Panthers, who believed in violence and fighting fire with fire. On the other hand people that supported segregation where attacking, and killing those who opposed their views. They bombed Martin Luther King's house and threatened him and eventually shot him. They burned their opponent's houses down and lynched some of them. Many of the people that were involved in these incidents were average, law abiding citizens. The fear of ridicule or embarrassment for some, or the fear of what the future may hold drove some of them to fight and kill. For others it was the frenzy of the mobs of people banning together to riot.