The “Good Old Days” Are Over. And Not Just For The Racists Either.

The world is changing. Lead, follow, or get out of the way!

The spate of racially charged legal decisions in the last couple of weeks got me thinking. I know, Oh shit! Not again! Tough noogies. And here’s what I came up with.

There is a fatal flaw in the GOP’s messaging. Even before Trump, but especially since Trump, the GOP has scared their aging, white, partially racist base with a world that is changing, and a past that may soon be beyond reclamation. Only the GOP can magically hoild off the assault of the black and brown unclean, and transport them back to the days of mint juleps on the veranda. But they’re full of shit.

The world has already changed, and it is no longer once friendly to the racists. The legal decisions of the last year alone have shown that. And not only is the territory no longer friendly to them, And not only is it no longer friendly to them, it is no longer so friendly to those who defend them either.

I wrote earlier about the fact that all the way back in the 90’s, the Southern Poverty Law Center shifted from trying to use criminal prosecution to break up the KKK to going to civil suits instead. They held individuals and Klan chapters personally responsible in court, won massive judgements, and bankrupted not only the individuals, but the local chapters as well. It crippled the KKK as a national operation.

In the Charlottesville, Virginia that came down last week, They held a literal rogues gallery of plug ugly individuals and far right racist organizations guilty of actively engineering the violence that led to injuries and the death of an anti racism activist. They hit the individuals with $500,000 judgements, and the organizations with $1,000,000 penalties. This will take these assholes off of the map, and make it impossible for them to retrench and rebuild.

But more importantly was the fact that the jury threw shine all over the defense’s basic premise of defense. For generations, especially in the south, first amendment rights was a magic wand that erased the violence that followed a group spouting out racist shit. The jury told these knuckleheads to sit down and shut up.

When a 17 year old teenage girl filmed the murder of George Floyd in Minneapolis, it followed a predictable pattern, but with a twist. This time the crime was so heinous that even the police department recoiled, fired Chauvin and his cohorts, and testified at prosecution. But there was another difference.

The difference is that the defense didn’t work! Chauvin’s defense team ran the traditional cop defense against a big, scary black man.
They tried to portray Floyd as an out of control, drug filled, almost superhuman threat to the officers life, who had to be put down like a sick dog. After due consideration, the jury came back and told the defense to Get that lame shit outta here! I’m looking forward to the trial of his three cohorts, to see what kind of a defense they try after Chauvin’s defense went down in flames.

And that brings us to Brunswick, Georgia, and the Ahmad Arbery trial. Three racist crackers used two pickup trucks to hunt down and shotgun to death a 25 year old black man for the sin of going for a jog. And, by national historical standards, this should have been a no brainer for the defense.

You’re talking about three local whites in the deep south killing an unarmed black man. Bad enough. But the defense had a secret weapon at their disposal. In a criminal trial, during jury selection, each side gets 5 what are called peremptory challenges. These mean that a lawyer can reject a potential witness without having to give the judge a reason. But, as in the case of Ahmad Arbery, there are three defendants, then each lawyer gets five peremptory challenges. Which literally allowed the defense to cherry pick an 11-1 white majority jury, presumably favorable to the defendant. The judge even remarked on the inequity, but lamented that there was nothing he could do about it.

And then the defense went to town. They took every opportunity to dehumanize Arbery, making him less than human. One defense lawyer constantly tried to interject race into the trial by constantly demanding a mistrial because nationally known black pastors like Jesse Jackson and Reverend Al Sharpton were sitting in the courtroom. One demanded a mistrial because a handful of New Black Panther protesters had assembled outside. Another lawyer, in closing arguments, referred to Arbery’s Khaki shorts, no socks, and long dirty toenails. Just another gangbanger on the prowl, stopped by solid white citizens from his crime spree.

Amazingly enough, when the jury’s verdict came down, they resoundingly told the defense to pound sand! Eleven white jurors cut through all of the shit, the racism, the tropes, centuries of racist history, and held three white racists responsible for the death of a 25 year old unarmed black man for the paramount sin of going jogging. And it brought tears to my eyes when I watched Ahmad Arbery’s family walk out of that courthouse, with hands linked and arms held over their heads, celebrating something so few black families ever know. Justice.

This is why I’m so grateful. The GOP is writing checks with it’s mouth that it can’t cash. The nation is moving away from racism. I wrote previously that I sincerely believed that Brown v Board of Education effectively sounded the long, slow, painful death of racism by forcing children too young to know better to play together. And now we have the answer.

And no, I don’t want to get into a juvenile pissing contest over the Rittenhouse verdict. That was an outlier with historical context. Like the OJ Simpson trial, the Kyle Rittenhouse trial featured an incompetent prosecution tied up with an egomaniacal judge who let fame put his finger on the scales of justice.

This is why I’m so thankful. The GOP can keep on spewing its hateful rhetoric, but every day the majority of the population moves farther and farther away. This is why it’s so urgent for Schumer to whack Manchin and Sinema over the head to ensure that the filibuster to get the voting rights legislation passed. If we do that, it’s just a matter of time.

Follow me on Twitter at @RealMurfster35