Three white men, Travis McMichael, his father Greg, and their neighbor William “Roddie” Bryan, hunted down an unarmed black man in February of 2020, shooting at Ahmaud Arbery as he ran, barefoot, away from the truck chasing him. Travis fatally shot him and, according to Bryan, yelled out, “F***ing n*****” as Arbery took his final breaths.
These actual white supremacists have rightly been convicted of murder. Travis faces a minimum of life in prison and the other two a maximum of life in prison.
Our justice system is not perfect. Lord knows that the elder McMichael’s ties to local law enforcement allowed the three to go an egregious 74 days before being arrested. But in the end, the justice system worked, proving that white supremacists cannot lynch an innocent black man and walk free.
This, of course, defies the narrative promulgated not just by the loathsome cretins dominating corporate newsrooms but also a president and his congressional allies who smeared a young man as a white supremacist for killing three other white men.
Unlike in the Arbery case, the prosecution against Rittenhouse found zero evidence of racism or racist sympathies in the social media history of Kyle Rittenhouse, who styled himself as a medic the night he was asked to come defend a Kenosha car lot. Although Rittenhouse openly supported law enforcement and public servants such as lifeguards and firefighters, as he told Tucker Carlson after his acquittal, he supports the Black Lives Matter movement and the right to peaceful protest.
The only miscarriage of justice in either of these cases was how long it took to charge Arbery’s murderers and that the Rittenhouse charges went to trial at all. But in the end, our justice system worked. In a sane world, this would be cause for celebration and a vindication of anti-racism.
