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Most of the media, however, has taken a different tone, in what at this point sure seems like a deliberate attempt to sway the national mood back towards the passion that ultimately sparked last year’s race riots, particularly the police shooting of Jacob Blake which touched off the violence in Kenosha. (No charges have been filed against the officers in the Blake shooting. They have been cleared by both Kenosha officials and the Department of Justice.)
CBS News framed Grosskreutz as a ‘lone survivor’. A Washington Post headline described how Grosskreutz ‘feared for his life’ before he was shot by Rittenhouse, omitting the crucial elements that had been established in court. The Daily Beast wrote that Grosskreutz was trying to surrender to Rittenhouse, a claim directly contradicted by his own statements in court. There are almost too many instances of this sort of media malfeasance to count. What’s more, there is video evidence that disputes many of the media’s characterisations of what happened that night.
Do these commentators simply not care? This should be a public travesty.
On top of the trial’s revelations, the judge has already dismissed a count of curfew violation against Rittenhouse. It’s a jury trial and anything can happen, but the likeliest outcome appears to be a Rittenhouse acquittal.
That’s especially the case after Wednesday’s proceedings, which seemed a disaster for the prosecution, as the judge angrily scolded the prosecuting lawyer from the bench and the defence motioned for a mistrial.
An acquittal cannot stand in the eyes of the national media, who have already all but passed their own verdict on Rittenhouse.
Across the country in Glynn County, Georgia, however, three white men are standing trial for the murder of Ahmaud Arbery. Arbery was chased while jogging and gunned down in the middle of the street. The three men accused claim they thought he was a burglar fleeing the scene of a crime. Once again, based on video at the scene, and one of the defendant’s own racially charged statements, there appears to be more evidence that Arbery’s targeting and subsequent killing was racially motivated. Yet the coverage in the media has been mostly muted, save for trial updates and recaps.
So why is the national press attempting to draw race into a trial where race played no part in the fates of Rittenhouse or his victims, yet all but ignoring the implications out of Georgia that very well might see justice for a young African American shot dead in the street? Why is racism a factor when the victim and killer are white, yet not when the victim is black?
It’s easy to understand the answer if you understand that the American media pretends to take racial issues seriously, but really regard everything through the lens of politics. Is the framing of the Rittenhouse trial part of an attempt to provoke commentators on the right to defend Rittenhouse and in doing so reveal the ‘structural racism’ of the country?
In the end, to a large part of the American media, justice for Arbery does not matter, because his death is not a blunt instrument with which they can bludgeon their political adversaries. Welcome to America in 2021.
Because you read about america
Also by Stephen L. Miller
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