Nov 23, 2021
By Mohammad Al-Jaber
When you are able to walk scot-free after killing civilians protesting against inequality and racial discrimination, you know you’re in the white man’s country, America.
The United States justice system proved not only to be absolutely incompetent but also incredibly biased toward white people after the Kyle Rittenhouse trial. This trial saw a criminal walking scot-free after murdering two men and wounding another.
The crime unfolded during protests in Kenosha, Wisconsin, against systemic racism in the police.
Joseph Rosenbaum and Anthony Huber, two white males, lost their lives, and the US justice system did not bat an eye. Perhaps that had to do with the two defending a black cause: racially-fueled police brutality.
From an “innocent” teenager to a murderer
We must go back to the origin of the incident to accurately understand the situation, so here is how it unfolded:
Jacob Blake
On August 23, 2020, a police officer shot a black man, Jacob Blake, in Kenosha, the same city that became a place for Rittenhouse to live out his homicidal teenager GTA dreams under US auspices.
Blake was brutally shot seven times before his children by white police officer Rusten Sheskey, leaving him paralyzed from the waist down and damaging his stomach, kidney, and liver. Blake also had to undergo surgery to remove his colon and most of his small intestines after Sheskey showed no hesitation to shoot him in the back and side.
Blake had been trying to break up a fight between two women when the police were called on him, and he had been trying to get into his vehicle when Sheskey shot him, adversely altering the course of his life without accountability.
This act of police brutality sparked national and international outrage; another white cop committed an act of violence against another black civilian following unrest over the summer of 2020 in light of the BLM protests, which took place after the murder of George Floyd.
The aftermath
People all over the US took to the streets after Blake’s shooting to protest against police brutality in acts that were described as “riots,” but is it so wrong to “riot” against a system in which racism is deeply rooted?
One protest, in particular, was in the limelight over 17-year-old teenager-turned-criminal slaughtering civilians who had been protesting for a pivotal cause: coexistence.
The protest in question here is the one that took place in Kenosha, which saw brutal suppression of protests resulted in clashes between civilians, the police, and militias who, under the pretext of “protecting lives and property,” used violence against civilians. Some reports even suggest that the police deputized militia vigilantes during the aforementioned protests.
“Self-defense”
The situation took a devastating turn (that the judiciary apparently did not perceive as so more than a year later) when a bunch of armed men showed up at the protest alleging “protection.”
The men who came to the protest – some of which were from different states and cities, such as Kyle Rittenhouse – did so with malicious intent. What else would prompt you to bring an AR to another city, or even state, other than murderous intent?
Upon seeing Kyle armed with an AR – which he said in an interview ahead of committing the crime was for “his job,” which was “protecting this business” and “defending the property” – protestors went after him intending to disarm the teen perceived as dangerous.
A video of the encounter showed a group of protestors running after an armed Rittenhouse. Upon catching up, they managed to get him on the ground. During the brawl, the assailant shot those who were attempting to disarm him due to the threat he posed.
Kyle aimed his rifle at one of those who had been pursuing him, Joseph Rosenbaum, who was unarmed, fatally shooting him four times. Rosenbaum fell to the ground almost instantly.
One person was not enough for Rittenhouse, for he then shot Anthony Huber, who had a skateboard in hand, once in the chest, taking life shortly thereafter. For those who argue it was self-defense, it’s like apples to oranges. A skateboard, logically, is no match to a firearm.
The trial
Kyle Rittenhouse’s trial, such as many things affiliated with the United States, was said to be nothing short of disgraceful. A criminal facing charges of reckless endangerment of safety, intentional homicide, attempted homicide, and use of a dangerous weapon, walked from a trial that would have had anyone, had they not been white, sentenced to life in prison, multiple life sentences.
One cannot make such a bold statement without providing evidence for their claims, so let’s go on a tangent about how discriminatory the justice system and its accomplice, the police force, are.
Racial injustice in the US
Altogether, the United States is notorious for having the highest prisoner rate, with 639 prisoners per 100,000 people, and having the largest prisoner population, which is incredibly lucrative for the US prison-industrial complex.
Not only that, but Uncle Sam’s land has vast disparities in terms of imprisoned population by ethnicity. As of 2019, the United States had an earth-shattering 1,096 black prisoners per 100,000 black people and 525 Hispanic prisoners per 100,000 Hispanic people while unfairly having 214 of its fair whites imprisoned per 100,000 white people. Black minors are not exempted from discrimination. Only compromising 15% of minors in the US, black children made up 35% of all juvenile arrests in the leader of the Free World. These numbers reflect the deep-rooted racism in the US justice system, which is infamous for its sentencing disparities when it comes to ethnicity and race – not to mention class.
Judiciary
The crème de la crème of racism in the United States isn’t about the fact that there are more people of color incarcerated than whites, but the fact that black people are prone to face a harsher sentence for the same crime as a white person. On average, black offenders received sentences 19.1% longer than similarly situated white male offenders.
Non-government sponsored departures and variances largely contribute to the schism in sentencing, for they allow judges to make sentences at their own discretion. That, in turn, brings color to a system that is not supposed to see color and therefore lays waste to judicial neutrality.
To add insult to injury, black males are 21.2% less likely than white males to receive non-government sponsored departures and variances, and when they did receive one, their sentences were 16.8% longer than white males who received one.
An aspect that proves the absence of equity in the judiciary system is that 28 states do not have a single black justice, 40 states do not have a single Latino justice, 44 states do not have a single Asian justice, and 47 states do not have a single Native American justice.
The US justice system seems to be running into many walls trying to distance itself from seeming racist, but figures suggest otherwise. The same goes with the police, which will be reflected upon, alongside key aspects of Kyle Rittenhouse’s trial, in an upcoming article.
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