vigilanteism well, it could have been an accident, to the process what is this man doing sticking a gun in the face of this other man? chris, it brings us back to conversations we have been having on this show for years. it s whether or not black people will ever be seen as real citizens in this country. the fact that far too many white americans can look at black individuals and say you don t belong here, whether it s children, whether we re walking down the street or jogging in a neighborhood, there are more and more white people who feel the need to protect what they deem as their country, their neighborhoods. so we see it on micro and macro levels and sometimes with deadly results. you hear ahmaud arbery s mother saying thank you for the prayers, this is a prayer that every single black individual, black parent, grandparent, says as their child walks out of the door because it is not a guarantee your child will come back, even if they re just walking to the store to get skittles
something that anyone should be able to do to be free, to be in their own body, and we see far too many white americans see it as an insult to them you dare have a black person live in their own existence and be in this country as a free individual. and we have yet to get to the bottom of that and we see how d.a.s, police officers, time and time again, just automatically err on the side of the white perpetrator as it comes to the black victim. yes, there was a great piece in the new york times by a public defender who talked about her experience in the criminal justice system, defending her clients, and often these trials are sort of awkward matches to the sort of stories we want to tell in some ways. they obviously are embedded in the context of american life, but what s going on in the room has a bunch of technical legal issues that can be distinct from the sort of themes outside of it and it seemed to me in this case when i watched that the prosecution did a very good job, on so