Editor’s Note: As this edition of the People’s Tribune was being posted, the verdict had just been rendered in the Kyle Rittenhouse murder trial. The People’s Tribune will post a more specific statement about the implications of the Rittenhouse verdict shortly.
“Who is entitled to justice? What does justice even mean in a system that was established to strip Black people of their humanity and for the greater part of its history has never really held white people accountable for murdering Black people? Who is entitled to self-defense? I mean, again, was Ahmaud [Arbery] entitled to self-defense? Was he entitled to freedom of movement?”
— Bree Newsome Bass, artist and anti-racist activist
The eyes of the nation have been glued on two murder trials: the prosecution of three white supremacists in Georgia for the murder of 25-year-old, unarmed Ahmaud Arbery, who was jogging in a neighborhood in Brunswick, Georgia on February 23, 2020 when he was confronted by three white men – one of whom recorded the attack; and the trial of 18-year-old Kyle Rittenhouse, who was 17 when he fatally shot two men and maimed a third with an AR-15-style automatic rifle during racial justice protests last year in Kenosha, Wisconsin. The protests followed the shooting of Jacob Blake, shot seven times in the side and back and left paralyzed by a Kenosha police officer who was not charged or disciplined in the incident caught on video.
Arbery’s assailants said they suspected him of robbing a home under construction in the neighborhood although there was no evidence that any such crime occurred. The three men who carried out the killing were questioned by the police before being allowed to go free for 74 days. One of them – William “Roddie” Bryan told investigators that another defendant, Travis McMichael, called Arbery a “fucking nigger” after shooting the jogger three times at close range with a shotgun. Waycross Judicial Circuit District Attorney George E. Barnhill called the killing “perfectly legal” under Georgia law, prompting outrage over what some critics called a “modern-day lynching.”
In the case of Rittenhouse, he quickly became the darling of the right-wing, which raised much of the $2 million for his bail. After he was released on bail before the trial, Rittenhouse went to a bar wearing a T-shirt emblazoned with the words “Free as Fuck.” There he posed for pictures flashing a white power sign and was serenaded with the anthem of the Proud Boys, the violent radical right-wing group. The photos spread over social media but were not allowed as evidence. The judge also denied the prosecution the right to refer to the three racial justice protesters as “victims” while allowing defense attorneys to refer to them as “rioters.”
“[Who] gets to assert victimhood, who gets to assert self-defense? So, we know that, I mean, even apart from the long history of collaboration between police forces, white supremacist organizations and white militias, we have a very recent history of this, as well. We’ve had situations where police kill someone, there is protesting, and then, in addition to the police presence in the street, which is a problem, we have white militia groups showing up, white supremacist organizations showing up. We saw that in Ferguson, we saw that in Minneapolis, and we saw that in Kenosha. And I think one of the things that is being kind of glossed over here is the fact that that is exactly the element that Kyle Rittenhouse belongs to.”
— Bree Newsome Bass
“In both cases, the impartiality of the judges is being questioned. In the Georgia trial, the judge questioned the selection of an all-white jury save for one black juror in a county that’s 27% black, but did nothing to challenge the defense lawyers’ picks.”
— @CornellWBrooks, “BREAKING: Is the KKK serving as jury consultants in the #AhmaudArbery murder trial?”
“In the second trial, Judge [Bruce] Schroeder disallowed the prosecutors to refer to the victims as ‘victims’ while seemingly siding with the defense at different points during Rittenhouse’s testimony. At one point the judge’s cellphone went off while the court was in session and played a ringtone for the song ‘God Bless the U.S.A.’ by Lee Greenwood, the opening song played at Donald Trump’s rallies. Judge Schroeder even allowed Rittenhouse to select the 12 jurors and alternates (picking pieces of paper from a drum.)
“… The irony of those lyrics will not be lost on the loved ones of the men who died at Kyle Rittenhouse’s hands last summer. It is their blood that helped make him the poster child of Second Amendment irresponsibility and vigilante justice. It’s their blood that will free him.”
— Tony Norman, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette columnist
“The other thing that I think is important is that the history of judges who are sympathetic to white supremacists has a very long history, as well. One of the moments that really struck me yesterday was when the prosecutor was questioning Rittenhouse on his knowledge of ammunition and brought up the issue of hollow-point bullets, and the judge actually interrupted and testified.
“And I also think that we can’t separate — even though the jury has to do so, we, as the public, we, as the larger society, cannot separate what is happening in Wisconsin from what is happening in Georgia with the Ahmaud Arbery case, what is happening in Charlottesville, where residents of Virginia are suing the Nazis and white supremacists who descended on their city in 2017, and doing so through a civil court because they feel like the larger legal system has not really done enough to address what happened there, as well. This is also happening as people storm school board meetings trying to strip Black texts and Black history from the school curriculum. This is happening as there’s the attack on voting rights. All of this is a context that is informing what’s happening in that courtroom.”
— Bree Newsome Bass
If white supremacist defendants are acquitted, the message sent will be loud and clear — “no one’s life matters and it’s open season” on those who out of necessity are demanding that government guarantees our basic human needs — housing; food; the right to vote; healthcare for all; clean publicly owned water; clean air; an end to life-destroying fossil fuels; quality public education for all; freedom from police killings and terror; an end to poverty; and the pursuit of happiness. Just as the freed slaves were forced back into a new kind of slavery following the defeat of Reconstruction, through the use of violent armed militias and fascist laws, the workers demanding a new society will be the target of a violent, repressive police state developing before our very eyes.
Only we, the people, united around a vision of a different future, a harmonious world in which every human being can reach their full potential, can change the trajectory. Getting there demands that we throw our energy into building a powerful, united movement of people who stand up for one another, a movement that demands a government that opposes any and all attacks on the well-being of the people. We must continue to build bridges to that future. It’s up to us.
The quotes from Bree Newsome Bass are excerpts from an interview with the news program “Democracy Now.”
Cathy Talbott is a former telephone operator, a job lost to automation. She was a homeless mother of two and fights for welfare rights. A former co-host of a weekly community radio program out of Carbondale, IL, “Occupy the Airwaves,” Cathy is the Environmental Desk for the People’s Tribune.
