Well, you all know by now. The three defendants in the Arbery case were found guilty.
Definitely a big difference from the Rittenhouse case last week.
However, while I was worried about the Rittenhouse case, I was confident that Arbery would have a conviction.
The reason? The jury make-up. And I am not talking about racial make-up either. While the Rittenhouse jury was made of 7 women and 5 men (roughly 55 % women), the jury in Arbery was 9 women and 3 men (75% women).
Why is this important? In both cases, you have two cases where white men claim self-defense and defense of property. Now, there are many reasons why Rittenhouse was found not guilty (17 year old kid, prosecutor missteps, the fact that Wisconsin had alot of violent rioting that was mostly absent in Georgia, etc.) But the fact that women made up a large majority of the Arbery jury was important too.
To all the mothers out there (or anyone who has had to care for multiple kids). Imagine you have one child who violently attacked another child. Inevitably, the attacking child will give justification. "He stole my toy!" "He attacked me and I defended myself."
A good parent will ask "why didn't you tell me so I can handle it?"
Yes, this is a huge simplication, but the same principle applies. Women, who are all too often the primary child care providers and educators have more emphasis on rules and authority. Women are more likely to want parties to exhaust all possible avenues before resorting to violence.
Basically, this jury was more female minded.
Men, on the other hand, tend to be more sympathetic to the "protect property at all costs." Again, this is not true for everyone, as there are many men who prefer letting police handle matters as opposed to vigilante justice.
Again, there are many factors involved in a trial, and the male/female ratio is only one such factor. However, I believe that the overwhelming female majority of the Arbery jury (3 to 1 ratio) versus the Rittenhousr jury (barely 50 % on both sides) was a key component on who the jury sympathized with in the end.
Male/ female violence played a big role too. I am a white female. While I can't claim widescale injustice the same way that other groups can, the fact remains that I, like all women, must always be on guard against rape/assault.
If I am jogging through a neighborhood and three men with a gun and trucks tried to get me to stop, I would run too. Because multiple strangers trying to take my liberty means gang rape and murder to me. It would not matter if they shouted citizens arrest or not.
I guarantee those nine women in the Arbery jury thought the exact same thing.
When my husband was a child in 5th grade, he went next door to a house which was still being built and threw rocks at the insulation that was exposed in the walls which had not yet been drywalled. The construction workers knocked on the door to his house the next day and spoke with his father who questioned all his kids and discovered what my future husband had caused the damage. He got in major trouble with his father and some sort of restitution was made as well as an apology.
I can't imagine someone being chased down and executed for walking on the grounds of a home construction site after hours. Even if that person vandalized the property which was not the case for Arbery.
I am so grateful this verdict was reached today. A willful unjust murder took place and the criminals who are responsible have been found guilty.
May Ahmaud Arbery be held in love and may his spirit be at peace. May his family feel the love of the nation this Thanksgiving.
Mark Meadow has agreed to testify for the January 6 Commitee
Mark Meadows, the former White House chief of staff under President Donald J. Trump, has reached an agreement with the House committee investigating the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol to provide documents and sit for a deposition, the panel said on Tuesday, a stunning reversal for a crucial witness in the inquiry.
@allyn I too, feel that, while their defense denied letting more than one black be on the jury? They ignored the number of women at their own peril... those women? Grew up with those kind of men. Those women? Are mothers ..with a mother's heart. To see and hear his mother's pain and be aware her son was modern day lynched...and that she would not give up on getting Justice for him.. for being brave and steadfast no matter what they threw at her.. insisting on them being held accountable... touched their knowledge of those kind of men and their mothers hearts ... and this time ? Justice prevailed. Yes, we are Southern... but as the Bitter Southerner says... We believe in a new South. https://bittersoutherner.com
@jessi1978 He learned there is no executive privilege to protect him ... so he's rolling over... he's afraid of jail... more fear of jail than of TFG. Once he breaks ... some others will too.
@journeywithme2 I have this nagging feeling that Meadows is "playing" the committee. I hope I'm wrong.
@lenor I have my own doubts, but I keep reminding myself that while the depositions/testimony that the commission is gathering from such high-profile people are certainly important, the commission has already interviewed/deposed over 200 lower-level people in TFG's circle, so discrepancies - intentional or otherwise - in Meadow's testimony may well be pretty glaringly obvious.
I keep hoping that garland plays his cards right an releases a bomb on the Jan 6 investigation sometime in 2022. Right now, thanks to manchin and sinema, the democrats need a strong win. Otherwise we can kiss the senate goodbye on the midterms.
@blackandwhite AND...if they don't pass the voting rights bill soon it's going to be another stressful year. Trying to be positive...but some days it's not so easy.
One of the blessings about the first part of the pandemic was the fact that there were NO mass school shootings.
28 school shootings this year.
3 students killed today and 8 injured, some critically.
We can NOT become numb to school shootings. We have failed an entire generation of children we can't fail the next one.
I really like that you said "we cannot become numb' because one of the parents of the children was interviewed and said "kids just get mad at each other at school". It's already sort of been normalized. It's kinda bonkers.
Getting mad at school used to mean a fist fight or a knife fight at most between high school students.
I was a Kindergarten teacher in 1994, a few short years before Columbine. We had "codes" for certain things, but did not have lockdown drills. Living in California, we had Earthquake drills and fire drills.
One afternoon a man barged into my classroom demanding to take his child from the classroom. He was very upset and I believed he was on drugs. We were in our circle time reading a story when he angrily flung the door open demanding to take his child from school.
I immediately assessed my options.
The child was not actually in my actual class thank goodness. The space between me and the erratic "parent" was filled with nearly 30 students sitting on our circle rug. The parent was standing inside the classroom by the front door and class phone. I rose from the rocking chair and in my strongest teacher voice told the man he needed to go to the office in order to check his child out of school. I told him his child was not in my class and I was unable to help him, only the office could do that. I also told him he was interrupting our lesson He did not know where the office was located and confused. I pointed him in the direction of the office, and he shortly left.
As soon as he was out the door I locked it, picked up the phone and called the office to let them know we had an angry intruder on campus who was on the way to the office and to prepare for him. I then notified the kindergarten teacher in the adjoining classroom to be on guard.
That was certainly one of the scariest days I had as a teacher.
Perhaps the scariest day however happened the previous year. As we were entering our classroom from recess, my first grad student told me with excitement and broken English that he had brought a BOMB to school for show and tell. Confused I asked him, what do you mean "bomb"? He said: "You know "bomb"! and made an exploding sound. I asked him to show me what he was talking about and he took me outside the room to where he had left his backpack and I cautiously opened it. Inside I was shocked to see a full-sized hand grenade.
Leaving the backpack outside, I ushered him in the classroom where all the students had now gone to their desks. I immediately called the office and tried to communicate my concerns without raising the suspicions of my first graders. I asked to speak directly to the principal and informed her about the situation by "spelling" the item of concern to her, knowing that most of my first graders would not know I was spelling "grenade".
She shortly showed up with the janitor who put a metal trash can over the backpack and then plotted what they would do next. I believe the janitor eventually discovered it was indeed a grenade, but only the hard shell of a hand grenade, not a live one.
The principal said in hindsight, she should have immediately called the police, not tried to contain the grenade on her own. Ummm duh!
Oh how these things seem so simple compared to what teachers and students go through in this new reality.
@lovendures I hate to "like" your post. This particular shooting hit close to home - about an hour away from us here in Michigan. With my oldest in 9th grade this year, it was a much more visceral reaction when I heard the news. Absolutely horrific.
You are right that we have failed a whole generation of kids. It is astounding.
Stacy Abrams has announced she is running for Governor of Georgia: https://amp.cnn.com/cnn/2021/12/01/politics/stacey-abrams-georgia-governor-race/index.html please consider donating to her campaign and keep her surrounded with Light ... we need her in office here in Georgia!