If Kyle Rittenhouse was Black
He would likely be treated very differently by the justice system - and by the media.
The frozen dessert division of Unilever in April, calling for the justice system to be torn down and the earth salted:
The frozen dessert division of Unilever in November, 2021, complaining that a defendant they don’t like is allowed to have a trial:
I have no idea how you square “abolish police/prisons” with “lock up Kyle Rittenhouse and throw away the key,” but if I ask I presume I’ll be told it’s not their job to educate me.
But I have seen many people comparing the Rittenhouse case with a hypothetical one in which an African-American youth brought a gun into a riot zone and ended up shooting three people, killing two of them. And it is one I am prepared to engage in good faith, even if most of the people making that point are not.
One of the most disturbing and infuriating aspects of the Rittenhouse case is that he encountered police on the night in question but wasn’t detained or even questioned:
A Kenosha police officer testified Friday he ignored Kyle Rittenhouse’s attempts to surrender because he believed there was still an active shooter situation and the teen didn’t behave as people typically do when they’re giving themselves up.
In the first public explanation since that night, Officer Pep Moretti said he and his partner were responding to an active shooter call during the Aug. 25, 2020, unrest when they spotted Rittenhouse walking down the street with his hands up. He said neither he nor his partner heard bystanders yell “The dude right there just shot them” as they sat inside their squad car.
The partners’ sole focus, he said, was getting up the street and helping people who appeared to be victims of an active shooting.
“There was still gunfire erupting around us … so we still thought he was an active threat,” he said.
Video of the armed 17-year-old walking toward armored police vehicles and Moretti’s police cruiser without being stopped went viral and was held up by many as an example of white privilege and racial bias in policing. After Rittenhouse was shooed away by police, his friend drove him back across state lines to Antioch, where he turned himself in to local authorities.
Moretti said Rittenhouse alternated between touching his weapon and raising his hands as he walked toward the squad car so they “weren’t quite sure” what Rittenhouse was doing. They yelled at him to “get out of the road” because he was blocking their way.
That was after the shootings. Before the shootings, police actually gave Rittenhouse some encouragement and offered him water, instead of asking him what the Hell he was doing there and telling him to go home immediately.
Do you think an African-American youth in the same situation have received the same kid gloves treatment? Yeah, me neither.
As for the trial itself, I have written repeatedly that most of the criticism of Judge Schroeder is inaccurate and overblown, but I also concede that many if not most of his rulings have been favourable to the defence.
This might be standard practice for him, but it stands in stark contrast to the way many other defendants - disproportionately people of color - are railroaded. The United States didn’t end up with the world’s largest prison population because judges are too lenient.
My conclusion from all of this is that the trial is working pretty much as it should for Rittenhouse. The scandal is that it doesn’t work for so many others. Sadly, if the fever swamp of social media (which I’m bending over backwards to avoid this week) is any indication, people aren’t mad that minorities are treated fairly, but that white defendants are treated fairly.
Which brings me to the other aspect of this case: the pop culture and media coverage. And it’s here that I believe the people making the “what if Rittenhouse was Black?” argument won’t like my answer.
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