Ahmaud Arbery And The Need For Justice
Plus, healthy living in quarantine and the importance of beef.
No one is born a racist, but everyone on some level is taught it. Whether you’re taught to identify and avoid it or taught or shown to use it, everyone at some point has experienced in the real world racism. It isn’t always openly hostile, nor is it always innocent. There are varying degrees, and they all go back to a person’s environment. Multiple people within an environment create a culture that is toxic and racist.
Maybe it is on purpose. Maybe it is on accident. But it is still there, ever festering until the system within that culture begins to ignore and even actively oppose people of another race simply because it is inconvenient to address them.
Ahmaud Arbery experienced first hand the racism inherent in southern white culture. In an area where there is an alleged string of burglaries, a black man in a largely white neighborhood is considered a suspect no matter if they know him or not. Two men, in particular, one with ties to law enforcement and the other his son, went beyond that, however, and tried to confront him. A struggle ensued, and Arbery ended up dead.
The local district attorney swept it under the rug. It was a “citizen’s arrest,” the office claimed. Nevermind that a citizen’s arrest is not supposed to result in someone’s death. But, local law enforcement never followed up. A dead black man in a white neighborhood that was plagued by burglaries. Local justice seemed to have prevailed. Case closed.
Then, the video leaked. The video shows Arbery’s jogging route being cut off by the men. He tries to go around them, they stop him. He reaches for the gun, which is currently threatening him. It goes off once. More struggle. Arbery is fighting for his life. A second shot, and the man stumbles off the road to die.
He was not caught in the act of robbing someone. It was broad daylight. He was jogging. The two white men had no evidence that Arbery had robbed anyone in the neighborhood. There is no evidence he had done anything wrong at all. And, yet, there are people who would defend the two men and treat the dead black man as though he deserved his fate. Video surfaced of Arbery walking into a partially constructed home, looking at it. He didn’t touch anything, and he didn’t take anything. He looked, and then left.
Who among us, as a kid or an adult, hasn’t? Yet, people out there treat it as evidence that Arbery was a nefarious presence in that neighborhood. They won’t openly say he deserved it, but they sure act like he had it coming.
The same people who will attack those demanding justice for Arbery do not realize that the young man was deprived of any sort of justice. He was suspected of committing a crime by local citizens, not law enforcement. He was cut off on an apparent jog. He tried to defend himself, and he was shot and killed.
The same people defending his killers were also just a week ago praising the fact that General Michael Flynn received justice after a malicious FBI violated his right and pinned on him a crime he didn’t commit. Arbery was never even investigated. He wasn’t even a suspect to law enforcement, and yet it is fine for him to be dead while Flynn goes free.
For some of you, your immediate response is to say that the two situations are not identical, but that is the point. The justice system was corrupted to take Flynn down, but there was a chance for him to go free. The justice system not only did not get a chance to investigate Arbery, but it would also then sweep his death under the rug to prevent an inconvenient investigation into a white man who was a part of that justice system.
Put another way, many demanded Brett Kavanaugh receive due process and be given a chance to present his evidence, and even pointed out that there was no corroborating evidence to prove the existence of a crime. A not insignificant number of people then turned around ignored it when Arbery was not given a chance to present his evidence and prove his innocence. He was murdered.
Flynn and Kavanaugh had an advantage. They are educated, white men. They, like so many white men in America, are able to start life already on second base while black men like Arbery aren’t even on off the bench yet, and when they finally get to the plate, the pitcher is as likely to try to hit them as they are to try to strike them out.
Injustice is still rampant in our society. The system was made available to Flynn and Kavanaugh, and despite some hiccups along the way, they were given the benefit of the doubt by many people who will not afford it to Arbery.
Kamala Harris Is Still On Top
It appears as though someone out there thinks that Kamala Harris should be or is going to be Joe Biden’s choice for Vice President.
Last week, I went looking through the evidence and saw one of the tell-tale signs that Harris was at the top of the shortlist: Someone’s been cleaning up her Wikipedia page. It would make sense, because when that news breaks, the first thing most Americans will do is go check out her page to try and learn as much about her as possible. As a result, you have to make sure that information is as favorable as possible.
Since the last week or so of April, there have been nearly four hundred edits to her page, most by the same user. Some of it has been reverted today, with the reasons being that the information was mostly obtained from Harris’ press office and not objective sources.
Meanwhile, reports last week indicated that Biden and his team wanted to take the approach from an “old school” perspective, meaning that he wants someone who has come up in government, paid their dues, and Stacey Abrams wasn’t it. Her active campaign for the job turned them off, and she has no real experience to offer them.
But Harris is someone who may have what Biden needs. She’s won local and state elections and was a major contender in the primary. She has name recognition, and word is that she has been working on some of her weaknesses from the primary. They want her to hit the ground running when (or, I suppose “if”) she gets the nod.
Homestyle: Healthy Living, Even In Quarantine
On this week’s episode of Homestyle, Leigh Guidry and I talk with Mandy Armentour of the LSU AgCenter about healthy living options and how to keep from going crazy while you’re locked in the house with all your snacks.
It’s a tricky situation, but Mandy talks us through it. Getting out into the garden helps. A little extra exercising, too. Think you’re hungry? Just drink some water. It’s all good stuff for you in the end, and you’ll feel better about yourself, too.
You can always go back and listen to previous episodes, and we’d love to hear your feedback. Subscribe, rate, and review the podcast here, and if you have cooking, crafting, or family activity ideas, you can find us on Facebook and on Instagram (@Homestylepod).
Recipe Of The Week: It’s Brisket Time
There isn’t really a perfect recipe for brisket. Every brisket I’ve ever had has been good. On Mother’s Day weekend, I had one that was cooked to perfection in an oven. Smoked brisket has always hit just right. Pastrami is about as elegant as you need to get with it, honestly.
But, no matter how you cook a traditional brisket, whether it’s in the oven or in the smoker, there is one thing that I think most people seem to forget: Beef is an amazing flavor all on its own. You don’t need to marinate a steak in a bunch of ingredients to try and infuse a bunch of flavors in. You just need salt and some pepper.
Salt is the way you get that concentrated beef flavor. It pulls moisture out of the meat without drying it out. If water dilutes flavor, then removing that water concentrates it, and that’s why you should only worry about the salt you put on your brisket (or any other beef).
With a full size brisket, take two cups of salt and two cups of black pepper and just cover the whole thing. Let it sit in the fridge, wrapped, overnight. Then, cook it the whole next day. What you’ll get when that brisket hits an internal temperature of 175 degrees is an explosion of that beefy flavor in every near-gelatinous bite. For me, I prefer the smoker. Depending on the size, you’re cooking it for 8-12 hours, and you’re making sure the heat stays low (225 degrees to 250 at the most) and that you’re getting plenty of smoke in.
On the smoking side, I prefer oak, but to add a hint of sweetness to that smoky flavor, add some cherry or apple wood to the fire. Fruit woods release a sweet smoke and while they mostly pair well with pork and chicken, that extra layer of flavor on beef is amazing.
Final Thoughts
We’re close to the official end of the school year. Unfortunately, it’s particularly emotional for me. This year’s seniors are the first class of kids I ever taught when I began six years ago. They were in seventh grade, and they were and still are an amazing class. Next week’s newsletter may well be a graduation address to them. I’m getting all up in my feelings about it.