I Do Wish Travis McMichael, Gregory McMichael, and William Bryan Best of Luck!
If these names are unfamiliar, Travis McMichael, Gregory McMichael, and William Bryan hunted down and killed Ahmaud Arbery for no reason other than his being a Black man in America. There is no more accurate way to describe what they did. What happened in 2020 was a lynching. Knowing that justice has been delivered does not diminish the outrage.
Recently, these men expressed concern for their safety while incarcerated, citing fears of vigilante justice in the state prison system. I am not amused by the idea of harm coming to them. That would be cruel, and cruelty is not justice. What strikes me instead is the irony. Three white men who felt entitled to kill another human being are now afraid of violence directed at themselves.
Recently, these men expressed concern for their safety while incarcerated, citing fears of vigilante justice in the state prison system. I am not amused by the idea of harm coming to them. That would be cruel, and cruelty is not justice. What strikes me instead is the irony. Three white men who felt entitled to kill another human being are now afraid of violence directed at themselves.
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| Photo by Clay Banks on Unsplash |
Reading their concerns unleashed a deep and familiar rage. I had to ask myself why. The answer was immediate. Their fear reflects one of the enduring engines of racism in this country. It is the belief that harm can be inflicted outward without consequence, but must never be returned inward. It is the expectation of immunity. It is the presumption that one’s own safety is sacred, even after denying that same right to someone else.
If these men possessed genuine remorse for taking a life, for devastating a family, for violating another person’s most basic human rights, would concern for their own safety be their loudest appeal. Would they ask the court to protect their well being if they fully grasped what they had done to Mr. Arbery. Where was that concern when they hunted him down.
I do not believe that their words express remorse for the crime itself. Their regret appears focused on the consequences they now face. That distinction matters.
I do not wish these men harm during their incarceration, nor for the remainder of their lives. But I do wish them luck as they spend their days in prison, living with fear, with confinement, and with the weight of what they did. Perhaps they will come to understand, in some small measure, the terror of being pursued, the helplessness of knowing that violence is imminent.
I cannot help but think of what Judge Wood said to William Bryan at sentencing. “By the time you have served your federal sentence, you will be close to 90 years old. But Mr. Arbery never got the chance to be 26.” Those words linger. They raise a different question, not whether the sentence was too severe, but whether justice can ever be served when a life has been taken.
I do not wish these men harm as they begin their sentences in Georgia’s state prison system, a system whose safety failures are so severe they are under investigation by the U.S. Department of Justice’s Civil Rights Division. But neither do I extend them sympathy for fears born of the violence they themselves chose to commit.
If these men possessed genuine remorse for taking a life, for devastating a family, for violating another person’s most basic human rights, would concern for their own safety be their loudest appeal. Would they ask the court to protect their well being if they fully grasped what they had done to Mr. Arbery. Where was that concern when they hunted him down.
I do not believe that their words express remorse for the crime itself. Their regret appears focused on the consequences they now face. That distinction matters.
I do not wish these men harm during their incarceration, nor for the remainder of their lives. But I do wish them luck as they spend their days in prison, living with fear, with confinement, and with the weight of what they did. Perhaps they will come to understand, in some small measure, the terror of being pursued, the helplessness of knowing that violence is imminent.
I cannot help but think of what Judge Wood said to William Bryan at sentencing. “By the time you have served your federal sentence, you will be close to 90 years old. But Mr. Arbery never got the chance to be 26.” Those words linger. They raise a different question, not whether the sentence was too severe, but whether justice can ever be served when a life has been taken.
I do not wish these men harm as they begin their sentences in Georgia’s state prison system, a system whose safety failures are so severe they are under investigation by the U.S. Department of Justice’s Civil Rights Division. But neither do I extend them sympathy for fears born of the violence they themselves chose to commit.
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