date: November 27, 2021
By Lucius Gantt
African Americans rejoiced when a Georgia jury returned guilty verdicts in the trial of three white men accused of killing Armaud Arbery.
Pick up any newspaper or turn on any TV or radio news show and you’ll hear or read comments about the trial but more trials will take place.
Federal authorities have charged the murderers of Arbery with hate crimes and those charges will probably be litigated during Black History Month.
Well, the United States of America has a history of murders of unarmed and innocent Black men and women beginning with the murders of kidnapped Africans that resisted slave traders that chained Black men and women in the bowels of slave vessels.
Our ancestors, family members and friends have been murdered in America by all means imaginable, including being starved, suffocated, shot, cut, whipped, poisoned, drowned, burned, electrocuted, ran over and dragged by cars, lynched, hung, attacked by vicious dogs and more.
Most columnists have preferred to praise the members of the jury in the Arbery murder case but I’m thankful for today’s technology.
In my mind, video is the hero!
Almost all of us have cell phones that can take pictures and videos. We must photograph and video every encounter we can to record law enforcement misconduct and misrepresentation.
Anyone that has a mouth and a voice can lie if they choose to. Before the people had so much access to modern video recording equipment that could be carried around in our pockets, it was common for law enforcers and so-called “citizen arresters” to say I killed the N-word because he scared me, I was threatened or I feared for my life.
You, me and other people of color should be more afraid than any other residents in this country.
We have been killed for playing, killed for shopping, killed for driving, killed for talking, killed for jogging, killed for sleeping and killed for praying at Bible study classes.
I smiled to see members of the new Black Panther Party participating in protests and other events in Brunswick, Georgia in support of the Arbery family and friends.
I wonder why other Black organizations don’t send fighters to communities where Black rights have been violated and Black people have been murdered.
The BPP has been calling for Blacks that support Black Nationalism to join their cause.
They don’t have to call for Black nationalists, they will come on their own when they identify leaders they can trust and follow that have an organization that is more inclusive than controlling.
Just because white jurors in South Georgia did what was right and based their verdicts on the evidence, one verdict cannot be described as a deterrent.
You still have friends and neighbors that believe Black Americans remain the offsprings of slaves and three/fifths of the status of white Americans and anything bad done to African Americans is OK and all right.
When it comes to our fight for equal rights and justice, it’s not over!
Lucius is a contributing columnist to NNPA newspapers around the nation, and the author of “Beast Too: Dead Man Writing,” available on Amazon.com and from bookstores everywhere.