9 May 2020: Daily Thoughts

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I haven’t yet felt able to write about the grotesque murder of Ahmaud Arbery in Georgia on February 23 by a white father-son duo, hence my delay. Arbery, just 25, was jogging through his suburban neighborhood when he passed a white pickup truck. He was, as are pretty much all joggers, unarmed. In the truck, as we now know from this horrendous, graphic video, were Travis and Gregory McMichael, the former in the cab, the latter standing in the bed. Gregory seems to take an injurious shot from the bed, while his son Travis runs towards Arbery who tries to defend himself but is shot twice more in the torso at point-black range before collapsing to the street.

If you’re like me, you’re neither surprised to find that this story was NOT given much attention by seemingly anyone in law enforcement until the video was released nor that the McMichael clan looks like this.

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The video was released just last week, and two days later, the McMichaels were arrested. Yesterday would have been Arbery’s 26th birthday, and tomorrow his mother will have to endure Mother’s Day without her child. It is my most ardent hope that the deplorable, racist McMichael monsters spend the rest of their pitiful lives festering in cold, isolated cells.

Meanwhile, I guess black Americans can add exercising to the list of things they can be killed for doing, like walking with a bag of Skittles, selling cigarettes, or playing with a toy gun in a park. Not convinced running outside was already fraught for way too many? Read this.

But white Michiganders can show up at their state capitol like this?

Can you even imagine if a black man carried a weapon this size into ANY store? This was today in Raleigh, NC.

at a “liberation” event.

at a “liberation” event.

White men can swing axes at policemen and their guns remain holstered?

Riddle me this.