By LaBode Obanor
White allies of the black community who have always fought side by side with black Americans for centuries of struggles against racial injustice have seldom faced the same fate as the black people they’ve supported.
Not anymore.
The white victims of Kyle Rittenhouse (an out-of-state white vigilante) experienced this first hand while protesting alongside black Kenosha Wisconsin residents against the unjust shooting and maiming of a Black man in the hands of police officers. Rittenhouse killed them, claimed self-defense, and was acquitted.
Not guilty on all five counts was the verdict read out in open court after four days of deliberation, sending an unmistakable message to white people who dared to side with or sympathize with black people’s yearnings for fair and equal justice. The implication of this verdict from the judge and jury to the larger white populace is “Traitors Beware.”
And let’s be clear this verdict also assured an open season on protesters. Black or white.
Here is the real implication. Suppose you are audacious to protest injustice; the Rittenhouse verdict says anyone can bring an assault rifle to your protest, wield the deadly weapon provocatively and create a dangerous situation. But if you dare attempt to remove or confront the threat or defend yourself from the barrel of the marauding cutthroat, the gunman has the right to shoot you dead and claim self-defense.
Put differently, the armed provocateur who created the peril has a more righteous stand than the unarmed protester who tries to defend himself.
Yes. This is the absurdity in the new American justice system.
It is not only villainous but a grotesque and twisted way to dish out justice to its people, where an active shooter has more rights than peaceful protesters. What used to be fair and righteous is no longer justifiable. At least in Wisconsin. Alas, what is moral is what a group of cacophonous, indecent, and horrid far-right Republican Party says it is.
The Rittenhouse prosecutor strenuously pleaded with the jury to understand the ridiculousness of the defendant’s claim. He lamented: “When the defendant (Kyle Rittenhouse) provokes this incident, he loses the right to self-defense. You cannot claim self-defense against a danger you create.” The prosecutor unsuccessfully argued.
One would think that such entreat is a matter of common sense. But the goon defendant, armed with a weapon of war against a protester with a swinging fist, claimed he was the one whose life was in danger.
It is entirely implausible and irritating that even an unreasonable person will find it unworthy to entertain. But not to the white jury of his peers who found it a plausible defense and acquitted him on all counts.
This is the reality of our 21st century America. The police are not the only ones killing with impunity, but the white civilians have also joined the bandwagon, and the justice system rewards both. What made it different is, while the blacks are the victims of the police, the white vigilantes are colorblind. They include the whites’ sympathizers in their hate campaign. As far as they are concerned, these sympathizers are traitors to the white race.
America’s gun-loving culture has gone off the rails. From utter ridiculousness to an existential threat to the unity of the American society.
It is no longer a question of the defense of the second amendment right, but a systemic plot to terrorize and kill every opposition to white supremacist intentions of the right-wing Republican tribal praxis devoid of political ideology now rooted in hate and hegemonic oppression.
The killing of these two white Kenosha residents by another white person and the killer’s subsequent acquittal has drawn a new battle line. America’s struggle for racial justice is no longer just a white vs. black strife but a new form of bloody ideological affray of two clear adversaries. The right-wing member of the Republican Party and the rest of America. It is now a brawl the Republican right is willing to fight against anyone who opposes its deviant and distorted interpretation of civil society—a skirmish not about governing ideas but about a parochial bloodthirsty tribe that wants to take America down.
A tribe willing to light the country on fire to have its way. See the invasion of the capital on January 6th, 2021, cripple the country, and set us back 200 years rather than see a just and fair society.
If anyone thinks I am being hyperbolic, Consider the repulsive display of these tribal Republicans after the killer was acquitted; immediately, Gun right of America and Donald Trump Jr offered to award him a AR 51 style riffle. Why? So that he can continue his killing spree? The disgraced ex-president, Donald Trump, calls him “a really nice young man” for killing protesters.
Others are falling over themselves to offer the acquitted vigilante a job;
Madison Cawthorn (Republican N.C.) “Kyle, if you want an internship, reach out to me”.
Florida Republican Congressman Matt Gaetz: “Kyle Rittenhouse is not guilty and deserves a not guilty verdict. In fact, he’d make a great Congressional Intern.”
Arizona Rep. Paul Gosar: “Justice was served for Kyle Rittenhouse and he is fully exonerated …I will arm wrest [Gaetz] to get dibs for Kyle as an intern.”
Praises, adulation and accolades for a person who brought a gun to a protest and sniff out the lives of other humans. They consider him a bonafide member of the tribe who is defending the cause. But the victims he killed, although whites, not that it matters; are enemies, race traitors. And unfortunately, many more will pay with their lives if this corrosive culture is not extinguished.
This is madness, and our beloved America is under siege. For the first time in history, the United States is now added to the list of backsliding democracies alongside Myanmar, Sudan, Slovenia, Hungary, etc. See the report from Stockholm-based International Institute for Democracy and Electoral Assistance.
Ours is now National ruination waiting to happen. America is about to self-destruct.
Benjamin Franklin warned in 1787 during the constitutional convention. I paraphrase: the country you have is a republic, but only if you can keep it.
Make no mistake about this, America will cease to be what we have known it to be if this trend continues. Unless the country reverses its current course, a destruction of its Republic and a complete reversal is imminent in the foreseeable future.
Is this generation capable of keeping the Republic? We shall see.
Why should the justice system in America of all places fall for such injustice. I hope the victims’ family as well as the prosecution have rights of appeal. Such ridiculous and self serving judgment ought to be overruled on appeal.
Thanks Ada for your comment. Unfortunately, this unjust verdict cannot be appealed. The U.S. justice system is not only broken but ridiculously complex. Sake for something call double jeopardy.