WHY ARE YOU SURPRISED?
WHY ARE YOU SURPRISED
©Wendell Griffen, 2021
On
November 19, 2021, a jury in Kenosha, Wisconsin found Kyle Rittenhouse not
guilty of first-degree intentional homicide, first degree reckless homicide, attempted
first-degree homicide, and two counts of reckless endangerment.
Rittenhouse
shot two people to death and wounded a third person on August 23, 2020, who
were protesting the August 20, 2020 shooting of Jacob Blake, a Black man, by a
white Kenosha, Wisconsin police officer. Video of the police officer shooting
Blake in the back seven times – as Blake’s small children were present –
sparked public demonstrations in Kenosha and elsewhere. Rittenhouse, who was
seventeen years old at the time, drove from his hometown in Antioch, Illinois to
Kenosha, Wisconsin, claiming that he did so to help protect property from looting
and destruction. According to his trial testimony, Rittenhouse shot the three
people in self-defense. A jury found Rittenhouse not guilty of all charges.
Why
are you surprised that a jury acquitted a white man who killed two people and
wounded a third person when the victims of his conduct were protesting the
police shooting of a Black man seven times in the back?
Why
are you surprised that Rittenhouse was acquitted after the trial judge allowed
defense lawyers to label the people he shot to death and wounded “rioters” and “looters,”
but would not allow prosecutors to call them “victims?”
Why
are you surprised?
Have
you forgotten that state legislatures passed laws - since George Floyd was
murdered by police in Minneapolis, Minnesota last year - that grant immunity
from civil and criminal liability to people who use their automobiles to strike
demonstrators who block roadways to protest abusive and homicidal police
conduct?
Have
you forgotten that those laws were passed since August 2017, when Heather Myer
was killed and more than a dozen other protestors of white supremacy were
wounded when a white man drove his car into them in Charlottesville, Virginia?
Have
you forgotten that a white couple in St. Louis, Missouri received pardons this
year after they brandished firearms at protestors against abusive and homicidal
police conduct last year?
Have
you forgotten that the officer who shot Jacob Blake seven times in the back is
not charged with a crime?
Have
you forgotten that the Hennepin County prosecutor initially and publicly
questioned whether any crime was committed when George Floyd was killed?
Have
you forgotten that George Floyd’s death was initially reported by the
Minneapolis Police Department as a “medical incident?”
Have
you forgotten that the police officers in Louisville, Kentucky who invaded the
apartment where Breonna Taylor slept with her boyfriend and shot her to death in
February 2020 have not been charged with killing her?
Have
you forgotten that the Louisville Police Department initially filed a report showing
that there was no one injured?
Have
you forgotten that the three white men who chased Ahmaud Arberry before he was
shot to death were not initially charged with killing him?
Have
you forgotten that Trayvon Martin was killed by a vigilante named George
Zimmerman, who, was acquitted in 2014?
Have
you forgotten that the white men who hunted, kidnapped, and killed Emmit Till
were acquitted?
Have
you forgotten that white people – politicians, parents, preachers, and others –
cheered after Martin Luther King Jr. was shot to death in Memphis?
Have
you forgotten that hundreds of Black men, women, and children were killed in Elaine,
Arkansas in 1919 by white men who, like Kyle Rittenhouse, George Zimmerman, and
white people who publicly lynched Black men, women, and children, took it upon themselves
to hunt and kill them by claiming they were preventing the massacred people
from murdering white people?
Have
you forgotten that no white person was charged for any of those Black victims
of the Elaine Race Massacre?
Have
you forgotten that Stephon Clark was shot to death by the police in Sacramento,
California in the backyard of his grandmother’s house while he held a phone in
his hand in March 2018?
Have
you forgotten that none of the police who killed Stephon Clark were charged
with killing him?
Have
you forgotten that Bradley Blackshire was shot to death by a police officer in
Little Rock, Arkansas who leaped on the hood of the car Blackshire was driving
before killing him?
Have
you forgotten that the police officer who killed Bradley Blackshire was not
charged with killing him?
Have
you forgotten that you live in a country where a Black enslaved woman who killed
her white slaveowner who had repeatedly raped her was lynched?
Have
you forgotten that you live in a society where a Black man named Robert Mallard
was lynched in front of his family by a mob of 20 white men in Lyons, Georgia on
November 20, 1948?
Have
you forgotten that that when authorities tried one white man for Mallard’s
death, the trial judge allowed the defense to call two jurors to testify as
character witnesses for Mallard?
Have
you forgotten that that the jury deliberated for twenty minutes before
returning a not guilty verdict in that case?
Have
you forgotten that a white defense lawyer in the trial of the three white men
charged with killing Ahmaud Arberry last year in Georgia complained about Black
pastors sitting with Arberry’s relatives during the trial to lend moral
support?
Have
you forgotten that white church leaders assigned white men to stand outside
white churches to violently prevent black people from worshipping inside them?
Have
you forgotten that white supremacy and vigilante behavior similar to that of
Kyle Rittenhouse, George Zimmerman, the white people who traveled from
Mississippi and Tennessee to hunt and kill Black men, women, and children in
the Elaine Race Massacre, and the white men who chased and killed Ahmaud
Arberry has long been justified as “self-defense?”
Have
you forgotten that white people have always been able to kill Black, Latinx,
and indigenous people with impunity in this society if they claimed they feared
for their lives?
Have
you forgotten how peaceful protestors against abusive and homicidal police
conduct were attacked by federal law enforcement officers in Lafayette Park in
Washington, DC?
Have
you forgotten that no one was charged for committing that attack – not a single
person!
Have
you forgotten how that attack was misrepresented by William Barr, former Attorney
General of the United States, and by Donald Trump, former President of the
United States?
Have
you forgotten how Trump urged mayors and police leaders to treat peaceful
protestors roughly?
Have
you forgotten how Trump encouraged his supporters to treat protestors at his
campaign events roughly?
Have
you forgotten how Trump and other white politicians are portraying the people
who engaged in a violent insurrection at the US Capitol on January 6, 2021,
that resulted in several deaths and multiple injuries as peaceful protestors?
Have
you forgotten that Trump and his supporters hail Kyle Rittenhouse as a patriot?
News
flash! The Kyle Rittenhouse verdict typifies what America has always been.
White supremacy has always been licensed to hunt, terrorize, and kill Black,
Latinx, Asian, and indigenous people, with impunity.
White
pastors, politicians, judges, educators, and parents have told white people to
view people of color as sinister threats. White people, on the other hand, tell
everyone else that Black, Latinx, Asian, and indigenous people are threats to
public health and safety. Meanwhile, they normalize white vigilante’ violence.
Why
are you surprised that Kyle Rittenhouse was acquitted?
What
does your surprise mean concerning your moral discernment?
What
does your surprise show about your knowledge concerning the history of
racialized violence by white people against people of color and their white
allies who protest white supremacy?
Why
are you surprised? Are you surprised enough to be saddened? Are you surprised
enough to be outraged? Are you sad enough to join efforts to dismantle white
supremacy and state-sanctioned violence perpetrated by white vigilante actors
and groups?
If
not, what good does your surprise accomplish?
My dear brother Wendell. We must take a stand against this vigilante justice in the U.S. No, I'm not surprised by the outcome of this kangaroo court trial. As a matter of fact, I knew this would be the outcome of this trial. Please America wake up? You've been sleeping too much! The racial hatred is in live and living color.
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