Kyle Rittenhouse wasn’t convicted because, in America, white reasoning rules
Before sending a Kenosha, Wisconsin, jury to deliberate if Kyle Rittenhouse is a murderer, Judge Bruce Schroeder informed Rittenhouse’s hand-picked jury that his fate rests on the “privilege” of self-defense.
We now know what the jury decided.
Neither side disagreed that the 18-year-old intended to shoot Anthony M Huber, Joseph Rosenbaum and Gaige Grosskreutz. They don’t disagree that the Smith & Wesson M&P 15 is a dangerous weapon. However, under Wisconsin’s self-defense statutes, Rittenhouse was allowed to use deadly *******, even if he provoked the 25 August attack, if he “reasonably believed” it was necessary to prevent his own death. Even though he traveled to the city and walked into a chaotic scene with a killing machine
Before former Kenosha alderman Kevin Mathewson summoned “patriots willing to take up arms and defend our city from the evil thugs”, no one else had died during the unrest in his city. Before Rittenhouse killed two people and wounded another, no one else had been shot. So, why is it reasonable to believe Rittenhouse needed a killing machine to protect himself against the “evil thugs” who were not shooting and killing people?
The “reasonable man” test derives from the description of a nondescript English character called the “man on the Clapham omnibus” – a reasonably educated, but average, hypothetical passenger on a London bus route whose thoughts and actions are defined as “ordinary”. The US supreme court case Graham v Connor enshrined this concept into law. The reason police are often acquitted of killing unarmed citizens is that they can argue that a “reasonable” police officer would have used deadly *******, even if the officer turned out to be wrong and the victim was unarmed. When I first heard this principle, the first thing I thought was: “A white person came up with this.”
Because all of our opinions are shaped and colored by our experiences, “reasonable” is a subjective notion. Only white people’s perceptions are made into a reality that everyone else must abide by. Think about how much privilege one must have for their feelings to become an actual law that governs the actions of people everywhere.
While there is no doubt about the value of the white lives Rittenhouse snuffed out, there’s also no doubt that Rittenhouse was venturing into one of the scariest, most dangerous situations those white jurors could imagine: a Black Lives Matter protest. It is easy to see how, for Rittenhouse and jurors, the victims were part of the frightening mob of “evil thugs”.
In America, it is reasonable to believe that Black people are scary.
Understanding the innate fear of Blackness embedded in the American psyche does not require legal scholarship or a judge’s explanation. This belief shapes public perception, politics and the entire criminal justice system. And it is indeed a privilege only afforded to whiteness.
Fortunately for the accused the colour card was also a favoured shade!
