Jury to Hear Closing Arguments in Ahmaud Arbery’s Death

Something tells me the jury is going to get this one right.

I mean they have to, don’t they?

The case is clear as glass: Black man jogging; harassed by group of vigilante white men until Black man starts to defend himself; Black man shot and killed. They can’t screw this up, can they?

Sorry, readers. I left my computer up while I ran to grab some coffee and my 4-year-old son began typing with all of the hope and optimism that only a 4-year-old can have.

America is totally going to fuck us because that is what America does. It’s really the American way. You’d think after the joke that was the Kyle Rittenhouse trial—in which the judge graciously agreed to hold and feed baby Rittenhouse while the defense made their argument—America wouldn’t fuck this up.

Well, you don’t really know America.

On Monday, attorneys are set to give closing arguments in the murder trial of three white men who chased and shot Ahmaud Arbery. Arbery’s death became another in a long list of unarmed Black men gunned down by civilians—deputized in their whiteness—who decided that they were going to “do something” about a Black man being in the wrong neighborhood.

From the Associated Press:

Prosecutors and defense attorneys were expected to spend hours making their final cases to the disproportionately white jury. The jurors heard 10 days of trial testimony that concluded last week, not long after the man who shot Arbery testified he pulled the trigger in self-defense.

Father and son Greg and Travis McMichael grabbed guns and pursued Arbery in a pickup truck after spotting the 25-year-old Black man running in their neighborhood on Feb. 23, 2020. A neighbor, William “Roddie” Bryan, joined the chase and recorded video of Travis McMichael opening fire as Arbery threw punches and grabbed for his shotgun.

No one was charged in the killing until Bryan’s video leaked online two months later and the Georgia Bureau of Investigation took over the case from local police. All three men face counts of murder and other charges.

Defense attorneys say the men suspected Arbery had burglarized a house under construction and intended to hold him until police arrived. Prosecutors say there’s no evidence Arbery committed any crimes in the neighborhood. They say the men chased Arbery for five minutes and used their trucks to prevent him from fleeing before McMichael shot him.

Imagine you are living, just minding your Black-owned business and a group of men—who are not police—surround you and try to keep you from leaving? Now, imagine you live in a place where the color of someone’s skin will dictate whether you could protect yourself from these men you don’t know, yet are acting like police. Now imagine that the men that followed you and kept you from leaving could claim they were in fear of their lives when you fought back.

Now remember Trayvon Martin.

See, now you are imagining America. The real America.