Like many black people in this country, I awaited the verdict with a gasp. It’s part of the Black man’s experience in America – holding his breath, hoping for justice but not expecting it. To say there was a collective sigh of relief when those guilty verdicts were announced Wednesday is an understatement. Many people cried, shouted, hugged and breathed.
We hold our breath not only when the problem is violent crime. It awaits local and state elections in places where Republicans are committed to turning back the clock on human and civil rights and disenfranchisement Black voters and other minorities. For example, in Georgia, Republicans passed a new congressional map overthrow the democratic district that Representative Lucy McBath, a Black woman, represents. And in 2021 alone, 19 states have passed 33 new laws that make voting more difficult, according to one analysis from the Brennan Center for Justice.
We hold our breath waiting for our Black sons and daughters to make him home wherever they are – school, church, birthday party, grocery store, mall, stroll in parks – because some obnoxious whites can kill them without care or reprimand – and stay away from it.
This is why we hold our breath.
When I first started hearing rumors about what happened to Ahmaud Arbery last April, I was shocked. At the time, I lived in East Atlanta, about a four-hour walk from Brunswick, Georgia, where Arbery was jogging when three white men chased him and shot him dead. For many months, not get caught was made.
When I tried to find out more, I couldn’t find much information about it in the news. As a journalist and a blogger, I set out to find out what happened. One of my sources told me the situation in Glynn County and I reported what I found on my news blog, Burton wire.
Black Press USA Newswire choose my story and circulate it to their member publications. News editors I used to work with at major news publications called and asked me what was going on in Georgia. I tell them what I know and send them my notes because for me, conveying information is more important than “owning the story”. These editors then sent reporting teams down to South Brunswick and the rest is history.
Arbery’s story has been picked up by the national media, which means more scrutiny and coverage. Arbery’s family has pushed for justice, refusing to believe their son was killed while committing a burglary, as McMichaels said they suspect. They hired a lawyer, talked about the case and working with activists to raise awareness about finding out what really happened to Ahmaud.
This is why we hold our breath.
It shouldn’t take all this effort to get the authorities to investigate the murder of a Negro, but often it does – and not just Male of the Mason Dixon line. Two prosecutors ended up reusing themselves from Arbery’s case, and one since indicted on charges of violating her oath as a public servant and obstructing a police officer. If Arbery’s family hadn’t pushed for justice, and the video of his murder hadn’t been leaked by a attorney that McMichaels consulted and if the local news outlets and independent Black press don’t upend this story, Arbery could potentially be expropriated by his family and community without recourse or accountability.
This is why we hold our breath.
Blacks have learned time and time again that our lives are worth nothing in a country where our ancestors built the brutal bodies and unpaid labor of their ancestors. ta. We rarely expect justice from a system that penalizes black Americans at nearly five times the rate of white Americans, according to the Sentencing Project The report published in October based on available data on convicts in state prisons. It’s also a system where blacks convicted of crimes are more likely than whites to be later found innocent, according to the report. National Registry of Immunities.
NS historical failure of some prosecutors to carry a fee against white people people who have killed or killed Black boys, girls, Black men and women, whether they were trans and cis, for being Black in the wrong place and at the wrong time is why we must hold back. breath.
While many Americans think that cases like Emmett Till’s, George Stinney, Jr. and Lena Baker As part of America’s racist past, Black Americans know it’s part of our present. We carry the tension of knowing that we could be wiped off the face of the Earth at any time, anywhere, and for any reason – and that justice could be denied.
As independent Black journalists and bloggers, we get caught up in the “media,” which is often accused of lacking objectivity or cultural competence and rendering Blacks incompetent. picture when we’re at our best and obscured when we’re at our worst. We are here doing this work and trying to advance stories like Arbery and the suspicious death of Kendrick Johnsonto make the world a fairer and fairer place for African Americans. The stress of doing this kind of necessary work, in the midst of living as Negroes in America, is why we hold our breath.
The guilty verdicts for the murderers of Ahmaud Arbery communicate that justice is not always delayed or denied to Blacks. It sends the important message that black lives really matter before the law. Ahmaud Arbery’s Life Matters. Ahmaud Arbery’s Family Matters. Community Affairs by Ahmaud Arbery.
This is why we exhale – if only for a moment.
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