{"id":14595,"date":"2020-05-14T09:36:24","date_gmt":"2020-05-14T16:36:24","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/occupysf.net\/?p=14595"},"modified":"2020-05-14T09:36:25","modified_gmt":"2020-05-14T16:36:25","slug":"the-murder-of-ahmaud-arbery-and-our-continuing-terror","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/2020\/05\/14\/the-murder-of-ahmaud-arbery-and-our-continuing-terror\/","title":{"rendered":"The Murder of Ahmaud Arbery\u2014And Our Continuing Terror"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

May 13, 2020 by Chicago Sun Times<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

His slaying has become a global embarrassment for whites. But when the camera turns away, the savage injustice that embarrasses us becomes simply business as usual.<\/h4>\n\n\n\n

by Jesse Jackson<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

 1 Comments<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"People<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

People stand six feet apart before participating in a 2.23 mile walk for Ahmaud Arbery on May 8. Arbery was shot and killed while running in Brunswick, Georgia on Feb. 23. (Photo: Nicole Hester\/Mlive.com)<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Today there is a national outcry about the murder of Ahmaud Arbery. The public condemnation has forced a belated response.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Those accused of his murder finally have been arrested<\/a>. His murder has become a global embarrassment for whites.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

For blacks, however, it is another humiliation, a continuing terror. It is the normal silence, however, that condemns thousands of African Americans to unjust deaths and millions to shattered lives. When the camera turns away, the savage injustice that embarrasses us becomes simply business as usual.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The horror of Ahmaud Arbery\u2019s murder is now well known. The 25-year-old black man went for a jog down the middle of the street in the middle of the day on Feb. 23. Two white men decided he was suspicious, hunted him down and shot him point blank in the middle of the street at 1 p.m.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Local law enforcement had video evidence of the crime. Yet no arrest was made until 74 days later, two months and two weeks after the murder. Local authorities chose not to act. Two U.S. senators said nothing. The white church\u2014that had blessed slavery, segregation, apartheid in South Africa\u2014was silent.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Why did the arrests finally take place? Because an intrepid reporter from the New York Times investigated the story and made it public; the murder video was leaked to the public on the 72nd day after Ahmaud\u2019s murder.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

As the public outrage grew, the arrests were made. Never forget, as one commentator noted, they did not make the arrests because THEY saw the incriminating video. They made the arrests because WE saw the video. Embarrassed, faced with an aroused community and an international scandal, they finally acted.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

So it goes. African Americans suffer in silence the savage injuries of institutionalized racism.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

We live in northern ghettos\u2014driven there in the early part of the last century by terrorism\u2014most strikingly the Ku Klux Klan and their signature lynchings. The Equal Justice Initiative reports there were 4,084 lynchings of blacks in the South from 1877 to 1950. The Klan, embraced by and often made up of the white gentry of the South, often gathered at their churches to organize the public lynchings. They terrorized blacks to end the fusion multiracial coalitions that grew up in the Reconstruction, and to take back control of their states.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The lynchings and violence were greeted with silence, if not approval. White authorities, white churches, white society turned their heads, if they weren\u2019t applauding in approval.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Fleeing north, blacks were red lined into ghettos, with jobs hard to get, and discrimination closing doors. To this day, African Americans are last hired and first fired. We suffer the worst poverty, the highest unemployment, the highest childhood hunger and malnutrition, the most inadequate health care. This reality is sustained by the silence of white elites, the silence of the white church, the silence of the evangelicals, the silence of the best minded citizens.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Then, the virus hits, and its most lethal effect is on those who are vulnerable: the elderly, the sick, the hungry, those with asthma and obesity. It hits hardest among the suddenly proclaimed \u201cessential workers\u201d who do the work that previously was largely \u201cinvisible: the bus drivers, the grocery clerks, the nurses and medical aides. Not surprisingly, African Americans make up a disproportionate number of those killed or infected by the virus.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The racial disparities are so stark that they gain national and international attention. Pundits express shock and outrage at the reports, as if they were surprised by the results. Editorials demand reform. Politicians call for action. The informed public is embarrassed.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But little happens: the rescue packages passed by Congress send most of the money to the biggest companies and the most affluent investors. Banks are saved; the post office \u2014 with a largely minority workforce \u2014 is starved. Hunger spreads. Any expansion of food stamps is blocked.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Arrested for leading nonviolent protests against segregation, Dr. Martin Luther King penned his letter from the Birmingham jail expressing his grave disappointment with the \u201cwhite moderate\u201d and the \u201cwhite church.\u201d He suggested that the “great stumbling block” for African Americans seeking their freedom is \u201cnot the White Citizen\u2019s Councilor or the Ku Klux Klanner, but the white moderate \u201cwho is more devoted to order than to justice.\u201d He decried a religious community “largely adjusted to the status quo, standing as a tail-light behind other community agencies rather than a headlight leading men to higher levels of justice.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The virus didn\u2019t discriminate. The society enforced the discrimination; the virus just preyed upon its victims. We have gone too long, struggled too hard to adjust to the reality that it is dangerous to be black while jogging or to be black in a pandemic.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It isn\u2019t enough to express dismay when the newspapers highlight the horrors. We need leaders and citizens of conscience who will act and not rest until justice is done.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u00a9 2020 Chicago Sun Times<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

May 13, 2020 by Chicago Sun Times His slaying has become a global embarrassment for whites. But when the camera turns away, the savage injustice that embarrasses us becomes simply business as usual. by Jesse Jackson  1 Comments People stand six feet apart before participating in a 2.23 mile walk for… Continue reading → <\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14595"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=14595"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14595\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":14596,"href":"http:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14595\/revisions\/14596"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=14595"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=14595"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=14595"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}