Excuses…
There are days where I question the wisdom in being who I am and feeling the need to write about stuff like this.
Am I perpetuating the same culture that minimizes whole groups of people in America by thinking I somehow have the right to pontificate on this?
Am I using this tragedy as a way of making myself feel better about being part of the problem?
I suppose that’s just a way of making excuses for myself.
I am not Black in America.
I’m barely even “Yellow” to a lot of people (too much for others).
Maybe I have NO right to say anything.
But here I am, saying it anyway…
Sometime in February of this year, as our country began it’s late response to the SARS-Cov-2 Pandemic, a young Black man named Ahmaud Arbery (25) was murdered by two White men, Gregory and Travis McMichael in the coastal community of Brunswick, GA.
In a case eerily reminiscent of the murder of Trayvon Martin by self-appointed “neighborhood watchman” George Zimmerman (The 8th anniversary of which occurred not a few days after the murder of Ahmaud Arbery), The McMichael’s were said by authorities to have acted properly under Georgia’s “Citizen’s Arrest” laws in pursuing and attempting to detain Ahmaud Arbery (Who they assumed was a robbery suspect) while armed with a shotgun and a handgun, and that the taking of Ahmaud Arbery’s life was a “justified” act of self-defense.
Perhaps in a pre-Covid19 America, this situation would loom much larger in people’s awareness, but between the constant barrage of pandemic news, the latest foolishness coming out of the White House, and social distancing guidelines keeping groups from gathering in solidarity with the community, much is left to social media to keep this story in front of people.
As of this week, no charges have been brought against the two White men who killed Ahmaud Arbery, and if we are being honest, none probably ever will.
According to the Equal Justice Initiative (EJI) out of Montgomery, AL, more than 4000 Black Men, Women, and Children were the victims of Racial Terror Lynchings between the end of the Civil War and the mid 20th century.
This number is more than likely not complete, but only the confirmed cases that EJI felt confident of. This number also does not include the incidents of “near” lynchings, and the staggering millions more who fled the South during the Great Migration.
Georgia had a reported 594 Racial Terror Lynchings, three of which occurred in Glynn County, where Brunswick is located.
In February of 1891, Henry Jackson and Wesley Lewis were accused of the murder of a White store owner, taken by a mob of 300 White Men, and summarily hung and shot.
In the coverage according to the February 23rd edition of the Atlanta Constitution, a note was pinned to one of the victims, saying: “The enormity of crime in this county forces the outraged public to make a fearful example of those committing the crimes. Evil doers take warning from what they see”.
In April of 1894, a Black man named Robert (Bob) Evarts was accused of raping a 10-year old girl. A mob took him to his death as well.
It is very likely that these three lynchings traced a similar pattern that thousands of others would follow before and after. A Black person (usually a male, but not always) would commit some minor social infraction… or would be caught standing up for themselves… or in some cases, would be “accused” of committing a violent crime (usually murder of a White man or the rape of a White woman).
Rarely was there a trial. Oftentimes, the victim would be abducted from authorities (sometimes with the complicity of those same authorities), and would ritualistically be tortured before being hung, shot, burned, often mutilated beyond recognition.
These were message crimes, acts of domestic terrorism designed to maintain a social order which always placed White people in power over everyone else. The targets were not only the victims, but the family and community of those victims. The message was clear, “This could happen to you”
What made that message all too clear, beyond the barbarity of the act itself, was that those involved in the crime were rarely identified, and never punished.
The “Presumption of Guilt” lay on the heads of Black people during this era; a dangerous falsehood that served a useful purpose, and which unfortunately continues to this very day.
The case can be made that racial terror lynchings are a thing of the past, and should be LEFT in the past and forgotten as such… a charge which has often been leveled at activists and advocates who seek to make America accountable for it’s actions, along with the claim that we are “ignoring” the progress that has been made.
Often those same charges come from people who don’t want anyone to touch Confederate monuments, denying that they are symbols of White Supremacy and that “those who forget history, are… etc.”
The fact is History is not as simple and clear cut as we want it to be, even the “Progress”…
We can say That people are not randomly accused of crimes just because they happened to be Black in White spaces… because they made White people uncomfortable… or because they “look” like someone who either committed or might commit a crime…
We can say that Black people are not daily bombarded with the idea that they’re lives do not matter to White America, and can be snuffed out in a moment…
We can say that Black people’s bodies aren’t displayed in front of an entire traumatized community…
And we can say that those who commit murder are held accountable today…
But the fact remains that even if Racial Terror Lynchings don’t happen today in the exact same way as they did decades ago, that does not mean that the underlying structure of Racism ever went away.
Filmmaker Ava Duvernay in her documentary 13th, and author Michelle Alexander in her work “The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness”, as well as countless other groups and individuals have repeatedly made the connection between our history of Chattel Slavery and how it evolved into our prison system today.
So too with Lynchings…
EJI, in part of its research into this history, saw the decline of incidents of Racial Terror Lynchings coincided with the rise in speedy trials and the increased use of the death penalty by state authorities.
Essentially, while authorities have often been complicit in these atrocities, from outright participation to the eventual cover-up… now the act is essentially state-owned and operated.
And many of the hallmarks of Racial Terror Lynchings echo in the stories surrounding the names of Black men and women killed by police that have arisen in the era of #BlackLivesMatter.
Instead of physical mobs of angry White people calling for blood, there are the comment sections of local media outlets and “news” blogs where the promise of relative anonymity and a lack of accountability for what one says inevitably results in the casual dismissal and fervent justification of a life taken (And there will ALWAYS be a justification)
Instead of one family and their local community being forced to watch the ritual murder of one of their loved ones, Black people across the nation become witnesses to it via media coverage and viral videos and social media posts.
Historically, most lynching victims were found to have been killed by “persons unknown”, the conspiracy of silence among communities and authorities alike hiding the fact that most everyone knew who did it. Even when the name(s) of the perpetrators WERE known, they were rarely (if ever) charged with a crime, and the hope of a conviction and sentencing was practically non-existent.
Nowadays, it’s more difficult to hide the name of a person involved, but the likelihood of any accountability is about as slim as in yesteryear. The times when justice seems to have been done (As in the case of the killer of Walter Scott), are few and far between. More often than not, a relative “slap-on-the-wrist” is the norm.
There is a saying that history “does not repeat itself, but it often rhymes”…
One can make the argument that Travis and Gregory McMichaels did not intend to murder Ahmaud Arbery on the streets of Brunswick, GA in February of 2020.
But one can also remind oneself (and others) that intentions mean little when the impact of ones actions is the unnecessary death of a human being.
No accountability seems to be coming for these two White men… who felt that arming themselves to chase after someone who was more than likely just getting some exercise … two White men who allowed the presumption of guilt when it comes to Black people in America (and beyond) to prompt their need to take “justice” into their own hands.
Any number of excuses can and will be made as to why a human being is dead who didn’t need to be… but in the end, they will be just that.
Excuses…
*Update* a GoFundMe has been started for Ahmaud’s family. Link is here:
