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America’s double standard of so-called justice prevails even after a summer of massive protests against racial injustice.
Published 11/23/2020 | Reading Time 2 min 12 sec
By BWSTimes Staff
Kyle Rittenhouse (left); Khalif Browder (right)
Khalif Browder — a young Black man who committed suicide after succumbing to the chronic trauma he experienced while held at Rikers Island without trial from 2010 to 2013 allegedly stealing a backpack — should still be alive.
Kyle Rittenhouse — a young White man from Illinois breaking the law once crossing into the Wisconsin border from his home state, illegally carrying a firearm at 17-years of age, and upon his encounter with three Black Lives Matter protesters, murders two and badly injures one — should still be in jail.
But as Dylan Roof was able to purchase water and chips from a Charlotte gas station and treated to Burger King, after killing nine Black American church members of the Mother Emmanuel AME Church, and as Travis and Gregory McMichael walked freely for 74 days after lynching Ahmaud Aubrey, Rittenhouse received the star treatment that comes from fulfilling America’s long tradition of white supremacist patriotic duty.
That patriotic duty includes antagonizing today’s civil rights movement against police brutality and systemic racism.
After Go Fund Me hit the pause button on Rittenhouse’s fundraiser, his team of lawyers and supporters still managed to raise the $2 million needed for his bail.
Rittenhouse walked out of jail Friday afternoon.
While he still faces multiple charges, including intentional homicide, reckless endangerment, and being a minor in possession of a firearm, he’s due back in court on December 3 for a preliminary hearing. Until then, he enjoys the comfort of his family and national support from the right.
Browder was never given that opportunity because he was poor and Black, deemed a criminal-thug, thrown into one of America’s most violent prisons, experienced salutary confinement for two out of the three years without a trial, he was 17.
America’s double standard of so-called justice prevails even after a summer of massive protests against racial injustice.