Demonizing Black victims is an old racist trope

[Street Glider]

A TV from a store, for one. Food from convenience stores for another.

His M.O. was running and stealing.

"
Arbery pleaded guilty to charges that he carried a gun onto a high school campus in 2013, a year after he graduated. Rodney Ellis, police chief for the Glynn County school system, testified at Wednesday's hearing that Arbery tried to evade officers on foot and stopped only when two of them pointed guns at him.

He was also arrested in 2017 on charges that he tried to steal a TV from a Walmart. Court records show he pleaded guilty to shoplifting. Arbery was on probation at the time of his death."


https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/crime...les/ar-AANZc4M

And all that does is tell us that he had a criminal history.

Unfortunately for them, though, the McMichael's knew nothing about that. For all they knew, Arbery had never committed a crime in his life.

His past criminal record played no role in their decision to chase him and kill him...

[Matt Dillon]

And all that does is tell us that he had a criminal history.

Unfortunately for them, though, the McMichael's knew nothing about that. For all they knew, Arbery had never committed a crime in his life.

His past criminal record played no role in their decision to chase him and kill him...

Of course! But he was no angel.

[Street Glider]

Of course! But he was no angel.

I don't believe anyone, including his mother, ever made that claim...

[evince]

Right after the murder of Mr Aubrey


A white ex pastor did an experiment


He went for a run with a Flat screen in his hands


He ran for miles


No one even looked twice at him

[evince]

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=sndiWjg7l7c



Former Pastor Runs 2 Miles With Flat-Screen TV To Prove Point About Ahmaud Arbery Shooting

[Matt Dillon]

I don't believe anyone, including his mother, ever made that claim...

I saw some things alluding to it. Maybe somewhere else, but there were shades of making this Arbury a saint.

[Matt Dillon]

When you bring up the fact that he was a thief all you're doing is being a racist

No denial of it at least.

[Matt Dillon]

Doesn't count. NONE of the three men knew of the any court record of Arbery's record of a shoplifting.

Try English.

Life in prison is not the penalty for shoplifting, even in Florida. The maximum penalty in Florida for shoplifting of the value that was taken is five years and $5000 in fines.

Unless caught 3x for the same thing. Perhaps they did away with that, but it was here.

[ThatOwlWoman]

Ahmaud Arbery was the victim. But for weeks, he was painted as a brute and a thug in the trial of the three White men who killed him. This tactic isn't new, but rather the latest example in a long history of court cases that criminalize and dehumanize Black victims.

Race and racial tensions were clearly on display inside and outside the Georgia courtroom where the three men were tried, even as both the defense and the prosecution shied away from those discussions. Instead, the jury heard from the defense a number of racist dog whistles.

"What I saw was the defense preying on White fears," said Carol Anderson, a historian and the chair of African American studies at Emory University. "The 'long, dirty toenails' -- that is an old trope of the 'Black Beast.' That is the stuff coming out of Reconstruction and Jim Crow."
Here's why the heart-wrenching trial was a textbook example of the criminalization and dehumanization of Black male victims:


Angie Maxwell, a political scientist at the University of Arkansas and the co-author of the 2019 book "The Long Southern Strategy: How Chasing White Voters in the South Changed American Politics," said that she believes that the defense was trying to put Arbery "in a (specific) category of Black person."
The toenails comment attempted to signal to jurors that Arbery was "one of 'those' Black people who isn't someone you would admire or respect," Maxwell said, someone "you can't trust, and who doesn't take care of himself."

Anderson, the historian, said that people of many races and ethnicities look at houses under construction, and their behavior is seen as standard or normal.
"But for a Black person to do that, somehow that's criminal. So you have the criminalization of Blackness coursing through this thing," Anderson said.

The McMicheals' decision to chase Arbery was rooted in the idea that Black people are criminals, Anderson said.
"This was like the slave patrol that felt that it had the right to question Black people, to police the movements of Black people, to challenge Black people wherever they were," Anderson said.

https://www.cnn.com/2021/11/25/us/ah...ays/index.html

Good post.

The same thing is done with survivors of sexual assault, particularly if they are women. They're painted as sluts, harlots, drunks, druggies, etc. The courts don't allow as much of that as they used to, but that doesn't stop either the media or the bigots. We all saw how the Reichwing here went after Dr. Ford during the Kavanaugh hearings. It's even worse if the accused is some popular sports figure or RW politician or actor.

[Into the Night]

Defense attorneys in murder cases ALWAYS portray their client's victims as the bad guy regardless of race. Always nice to see a liberal jump up to prove their ignorance.

How did the mainstream media portray Arbery? How did they portray the McMichaels?

Why would a defense attorney claim their client is 'the bad guy'??

[Into the Night]

Of course! But he was no angel.

Neither are you.

[Into the Night]

I saw some things alluding to it. Maybe somewhere else, but there were shades of making this Arbury a saint.

Irrelevant.

[Sirthinksalot]

Why would a defense attorney claim their client is 'the bad guy'??

They wouldn't. But they would portray the people whom their client victimized as the bad guy, ie it's not their client's fault.

You may have misread what I posted.

[Into the Night]

They wouldn't. But they would portray the people whom their client victimized as the bad guy, ie it's not their client's fault.

You may have misread what I posted.

Okay. Why would a defense attorney portray his client has having victims???

[Sirthinksalot]

Okay. Why would a defense attorney portray his client has having victims???

I suspect a defense attorney wouldn't do that. Let me try to explain what I'm driving at in the context of this thread.

Can we agree that in objective reality, Arbery was the victim of the McMichaels? With that established between you and I, irrespective of the defense attorney, the McMichael's defense attorney would try to portray Arbery as the bad guy to help his clients with their defense. The fact that Arbery is black has nothing to do with the defense portraying him as the bad guy. That's just a common defense tactic in this kind of case, and the defense would have done the same thing if Arbery had been white and all other circumstances were the same. The OP's contention that it was an example of racism is false.