Kareem Abdul-Jabbar. (photo: Etienne Laurent/EPA-EFE/Shutterstock)
It's a Misdirection to Keep Us from the Real Issue
Kareem Abdul-Jabbar
/
Kareem Abdul-Jabbar's Substack
25 november 21
readersupportednews.org
Kyle Rittenhouse was a seventeen-year-old kid who
made a decision to travel to another state, pick up a rifle, and insert
himself in a volatile situation—a decision that resulted in the loss of
two lives. Both the men he killed would probably still be alive if
Rittenhouse had stayed home and let the police do their job. Those are
the facts. But these facts seem to be irrelevant to both those who
condemn and those who celebrate Rittenhouse’s not-guilty verdict.
Instead, both sides have inflated Rittenhouse into a blimp-sized symbol
of racial tension in America like a giant cartoon character balloon
floating over a used car lot. And like those balloons, it’s all gas with
little substance.
Much of that lighter-than-air intellectual gas comes from the
conservative media bullhorns gleefully chirping about how the verdict
will result in more freedom of self-defense and how this proves that the
justice system works. They know none of that is true but the bright,
waving Rittenhouse balloon gets your attention so they can launch into
their simplistic soliloquies about Freedom this and Freedom that. People
of Color are worried about vigilantes who think they’ve just been
issued a 007 license to kill roaming the streets looking for targets
darker than beige. Their interpretation of the verdict is more realistic
since they’ve seen how injustice breeds more injustice.
But this is the wrong case to make into such a massive symbol.
We should start by recognizing that a not-guilty verdict was
inevitable, not because of racism but because of the law. Sure, the
judge seemed a bit biased at times and of the 20 jurors
only one was a Person of Color. But, from what we were able to piece
together through news reports, the prosecution did not present a
compelling case. The state laws about self-defense did favor
Rittenhouse’s actions. In the end, the verdict did not seem to be the
result of racial bias that favored him because he was white. The fact
that we may not like why Rittenhouse was in Kenosha, or that the police
were clearly prejudiced in supporting him as he wandered the streets
with a loaded rifle, or that he’s become a poster boy for white
supremacists and right-wing pundits, doesn’t justify conviction if the
case presented in court doesn’t merit it.
America’s past is too littered with the bodies of people lynched,
executed, or imprisoned because of what they represented rather than any
legal evidence. We sent 120,000 people of Japanese ancestry to prison
camps during World War II as symbols rather than verifiable threats. Two
Black Muslim men convicted of the assassination of Malcolm X were exonerated
this week, 55 years after their conviction, when it was discovered that
the FBI and the NYPD withheld information from the defense that would
have likely resulted in their acquittal.
If we are to be outraged by miscarriages of justice in the courtroom,
we can’t be outraged by a verdict that is justified based on the case
presented. However, if the three defendants who killed Ahmaud Arbery are
found not guilty, that would be justified outrage.
Systemic racism in America won’t get worse because of this verdict.
Actually, it’s hard to imagine it getting worse. Over 150 years after
the end of slavery and Black people are facing legislation in nearly
half the states to make it more difficult for them to vote while rampant
gerrymandering insures that when they do vote, their effect of their
votes will be diluted. Anyone who wanted to know the truth could read
the hundreds of studies that prove Black Americans are disadvantaged
from birth in terms of education, health, medical care, job
opportunities, life expectancy, and the legal system. And if you think
this disparity is something from the distant past, Scientific American’s December 2021 issue
reveals studies that show how Black children fare worse than white
children with routine surgeries because when they are brought into the
hospital, they are less promptly diagnosed and less promptly treated
than white children. These Black children had medical complications at a
rate 18 percent higher than white children and were three times more
likely to die. If these statistics were reversed and white kids were at
greater risk, hospital reform would be instantaneous.
Hiding, obscuring, and denying these facts about systemic racism from
the American public was always the real goal of the right’s obsession
with the Rittenhouse trial. When everyone gets into heated arguments
about the minutiae of the trial or the possibility of more vigilantism
or what would have happened if he’d been Black, we’re distracted from
the most important issue involving the case. The right aren’t just
celebrating Rittenhouse’s verdict, they’re gloating because to them this
proves that the Back Lives Matter protests that inspired up to 26 million Americans
to take to the streets in the largest protest in American history had
little real-world effect. The actual protest that brought Rittenhouse
out of his room from playing Call of Duty to take to the streets gets minimized: Jacob Blake,
a 29-year-old Black man, was shot seven times in the back by a white
police officer (against whom no charges were or will be filed).
The Rittenhouse verdict is the magician’s misdirection. While we’re
wringing our hands over the trial, the actual sleight-of-hand was to
silence African Americans’ voice in conversations about America. The
conservatives’ twisted logic is that if Rittenhouse goes free, that is
proof that whatever BLM was protesting is not legitimate. It’s the
equivalent of having a doctor tell you that you need to exercise more or
you’ll have a heart attack and instead you dig up dirt on the doctor
which proves you don’t need to exercise. The doctor isn’t out to destroy
you anymore than protests are out to destroy the country but rather to
improve it.
There are good reasons to fear vigilantes. Vigilantism has been so
romanticized in our culture that we can’t really be surprised when some
impressionable kid wants to be a superhero. From Spider-Man to Batman,
the Marvel and DC Universes are almost entirely vigilantes. Colorful
costumes and angsty origin stories don’t change that. Our heroes are
rule-breakers who think they know what’s best for people more than the
judicial system or elected officials. That’s what made Trump appealing
to so many: he was a soft-core vigilante who thought he knew better than
everyone else. He didn’t, and the economy was damaged, civil rights
were repressed, and thousands of people died unnecessarily as a result.
Ironically, the vigilante and the villain live by the same code that
they should be permitted to act outside the law because they alone know
what is best. While that makes for entertaining fictional stories, in
real life it creates chaos and injustice and we can’t and won’t tolerate
it.
Don’t waste any outrage on the Rittenhouse verdict. Instead, be
outraged that very few people are still marching for Black Lives Matter,
even though all the reasons for it still persist. Be outraged that the
restrictive Texas abortion law—being copied
by Florida, Arkansas, Ohio, South Carolina, Kentucky, Louisiana,
Oklahoma, and South Dakota—isn’t bringing millions to actively protest
and boycott those states that are taking away women’s rights and
treating them as second-class citizens. Be outraged that Critical Race
Theory is being demonized as an attack against whites rather than an
educational adjustment to school curriculums that deliberately excluded
the contributions of most People of Color in American history.
Ignore those who worship the bloated Rittenhouse balloon as a
justification for their white exceptionalism. We need to stay focused on
the real evils behind the curtain and not get distracted by those
making slimy mud pies and thinking its all-American apple pie.
Our heroes are
rule-breakers who think they know what’s best for people more than the
judicial system or elected officials.
