Running while Black: justice of a kind
On November 24th, three white men were convicted of murdering Ahmaud Arbery, an unarmed black man jogging in his local neighbourhood in Georgia, more than 21 months ago. The verdict came after a lengthy, racially charged trial, just a week after the acquittal of Kyle Rittenhouse in Wisconsin for shooting dead two Black Lives Matter protesters.
The response of many to the convictions of Travis McMichael, Greg McMichael and William Bryan has been one of relief, even celebration, but many aspects of the case and trial should give us pause before we cheer too loudly. This is not a time for celebration, but one for further examination of the system and culture in which these verdicts were ever in doubt, and in which the criminals can continue to claim they ‘did the right thing’ and plan to appeal.
Here are four reasons not to celebrate the guilty verdicts.
More than one public prosecutor had to recuse themselves from the investigation due to conflicts of interest, and one is now under investigation themselves for obstructing the original investigation. The killers were only arrested once video footage of the murder emerged. One of the convicted killers was himself an officer of the court.
The defence in the trial implicitly acknowledged racial bias in the justice system – deliberately selecting an almost all white jury from what had been a diverse jury pool, and complaining that the very presence of Black pastors in the courtroom was prejudicial.
While acknowledging through their own actions that the judicial process was racially biased, the defence simultaneously accused the prosecution of racism – suggesting that protests outside the courtroom meant the trial amounted to a public lynching – an obviously loaded term. A black man is killed by three white men on suspicion of a crime, without evidence and without any due process, and they characterise their own trial by jury as a lynching. This is a common racist tactic – accusing the victim of perpetrating the very thing of which they are a victim.
Racists and their enablers will weaponise this verdict against those who continue to fight for racial justice. You see, they’ll say, the system works. Kyle gets off and gets invited to Mar-a-Lago, but these guys are going to gaol. You win some you lose some. Except the losses outnumber the wins, and the wins only seem to happen when unequivocal video evidence comes to light. And not even always then.
And of course, justice shouldn’t be a game, to be won or lost by different sections of society.
The police officer who shot and killed an unarmed Breonna Taylor in her own home has not even been charged with a crime connected to her death. The police officer who killed Eric Garner on a New York street – the entire incident recorded on camera – has never been indicted.
Sadly, we know that Ahmaud Arbery won’t be the last person to be killed for ‘running while black’. Those three white men are not alone in continuing to believe that they were entitled to do what they did. And while that belief remains widespread, we must continue to fight for racial justice