Hello Tom,
I’ve not seen anyone suggest that the McMichaels should be denied due process of law. Yes, many people are talking as though it’s an established fact that the McMichaels murdered Ahmaud Arbery—because we’ve seen video of them doing it. https://twitter.com/TomBuck/status/1259591362854498304

There’s an important difference between saying, on the one hand, “I really can’t conceive of any context that would make what those guys are doing on that video anything other than murder,” and on the other hand, “The McMichaels aren’t legally entitled to counsel, trial, etc.”

Lots of people are saying the former. I don’t know of anyone saying the latter—which doesn’t mean that no one is saying it, but does suggest that it’s at most a marginal view among those who are outraged by the conduct of relevant law enforcement agencies.

“But wait!” you might say. “By deciding it’s murder before all the facts have come out, you are—if only in your heart—denying the McMichaels due process!” If that’s your position, and it must be, then I’d like to draw your attention to three things.

First, Emmett Till was a 14-year-old boy who was beaten to the point of disfigurement, shot, tethered by the neck to a cotton-gin fan with barbed wire and thrown into the Tallahatchie River. His murderers were acquitted by an all-white jury after less than an hour’s deliberation.

Till’s purported offense, which is relevant only insofar as its triviality is a testament to the barbarity of the Jim Crow South, was forwardness in addressing himself to Carolyn Bryant, a white woman who later confessed that her account of Till’s conduct was entirely fabricated.

In what respect is the fate of Emmitt Till at all comparable to the McMichaels’s situation? How are the peaceful, public demands for the McMichaels’s arrest and prosecution at all similar to the lynching of Emmitt Till?

I imagine you were aware that your invocation of Emmitt Till’s name would be a ‘trigger’ for ‘SJWs’. That said, I cannot in good faith believe that the effect of your words is as you would have it.

Sincerely, in the name of our Lord Jesus, I must tell you that it is perverse to compare the injustice of Till’s murder with any meager sense in which the McMichaels have been denied due process by those who believe them to be guilty and demand their arrest.

Second, the McMichaels’s conduct is outrageous, but it is not the principal reason for the outcry. While Arbery’s murder is shocking, it’s not all that surprising to people of color—it’s more or less consistent with their experience.

In addition to lingering institutional effects of racist laws, racially motivated suspicion and hostility, attended by the looming threat of unprovoked violence, are well-documented features of day-to-day existence for our brothers and sisters of color.

The protests over Arbery’s murder are protests against the fact that no one even bothered to arrest the guys that killed him. As if his murder wasn’t worth punishing—sort of like Emmitt Till.

Third, the notion that some evidence might come to light that would somehow exculpate the McMichaels is troubling. For instance, I’m told that @DrOakley1689 has been gloating about a video of Ahmaud Arbery walking around a construction site.

@DrOakley1689 seems to think that this revelation should somehow embarrass those demanding justice. I assure you that it does not. Nothing that Arbery might have done on a vacant construction site could warrant or mitigate the wrongness of what was done to him. Nothing.

In order to claim otherwise, you’d have to believe that there is some crime strictly against property, the threat of which justifies taking a human life—i.e., that one person’s property rights supersede another’s right to life. That’s Baal worship.

Just so we’re clear, I’m not saying you don’t have a right to use lethal force in defense of yourself or your family. I’m saying you don’t have a God-given right to use lethal force in defense of your stuff. And any statute that confers such a right is wicked.

So, no, the McMichaels have not been denied due process, even in the meager sense that those calling for their arrest have rushed to judgment. The video in evidence makes clear that at the time of his murder, they killed a man who posed no threat to them.

Tom, I almost didn’t respond to this. I’m tired of it and I’d rather just ignore it. Your particular version of evangelical Christianity has only been around since about 1950, and I’ll be shocked if it’s still around in 2050. In the sweep of Church history, it’s a footnote.

I prefer to spend my time thinking about what comes after the culture war. But I’ve chosen to live in solidarity with my Christian brothers and sisters of color, and that means speaking out against white evangelicals with 10K+ followers on Twitter when they say offensive things.