The Kyle Rittenhouse trial is acting as a referendum on whether or not the Black Lives Matter protests had a point
Black Lives Matter protests began in 2013 in response to killers of black Americans avoiding vigorous prosecution. They were not motivated by self esteem issues or to put black lives on a pedestal. They started out of frustration over black deaths and beatings with no justice, and police involvement in the long and seemingly unchanging history of that. The BLM protests were fundamentally about ending the acceptance of everyday violence against black people. Since that violence has so often been at the hands of police, it rapidly focused on whether police should be able to (or indeed, be expected to) shoot to kill suspects, and to torture people in their care and custody.
In most places, police themselves aggressively counter-protested any change in how they’re expected to do their jobs. There were notable exceptions, of course, but those were rare. The use of deadly or extremely violent force against suspects and bystanders is a staple of American policing, and many departments defended that vigorously, often by using some of those same violent tactics against protesters. Cities like New York & Seattle saw especially egregious behavior from law enforcement during the protests, with kettling, beatings, hitting citizens with cars, use of teargas and rubber-coated bullets, and tactics designed to create the conditions for a riot.
The national broadcast of these tactics only polarized political positions even further. While many of us expected video of protestors (especially young or elderly white protesters) being bloodied by police batons to lead to a greater acknowledgment that this behavior needed to stop, it did not. Instead, the protesters were typically called rioters and looters, and blamed for the violence itself. In fact, at the height of the protests it was often easy to tell someone’s position on the movement by whether they used the word “protester” or “rioter.”
Minority or female cops have always been more likely to face charges than their white male counterparts after the killing or beating of a suspect, and black and indigenous citizens have always been much more likely to be killed or beaten. But that is a feature of the system, not a bug, and it’s a major part of why so much of white America doesn’t see a problem with how things are. I’ve personally often heard the argument that the death of one white police officer is justification for deadly violence against any black suspect. When I’ve called people out for judging an entire diverse race by the actions of one person, they’ve simply refused to accept that’s a racist lens, and insisted they’re merely being practical. After all, the proliferation of guns in the US makes every traffic stop a mortal danger.
There was almost no nuance in these positions, and young Kyle Rittenhouse deliberately and squarely placed himself into the middle of this political fray. Protesters were arguing that police must curtail the the use of deadly force, and if they cannot, we must curtail the use of police. Counter-protesters argued that deadly force and extreme violence against suspects and bystanders are uniquely required here in the US, and that slowing their use will put police, and by extension all of us, in danger.
By arriving at the scene to “support the police” with a loaded AR-15, it was clear from the start that this meant supporting police ability to kill suspects. And that’s no surprise. Indeed, that’s what the counter protests were all about. That was their explicitly stated argument—police exist to maintain order, and if you are perceived to violate or undermine that order you may be killed. Anything less, the argument followed, and we could be facing total anarchy.
Rittenhouse wasn’t alone in this position. In fact it wasn’t even a shocking or unique position—it was just the other side of the argument. Like others, he arrived to help police maintain order, to stand in support of them in what he perceived to be their fight. True to how he saw police action (and clearly how many other Americans see it as well), he was there to assist in deadly violence against protesters if he thought any of the counter-protesters (or police) were threatened.
In the America of 2020, this was not an unusual position to hold. Lots of Americans believed the police should use deadly force against crowds if they think the crowd may turn on them. And in this case, by specifically protesting against police behavior, the crowd had turned against police simply by showing up. After the violence at the Capitol on January 6 (and now that the right-wing isn’t in charge of the federal government) that position isn’t as clear, but the prevailing attitude among the right wing of the time was that if you opposed police with a show of force, you were a bad person who deserved to meet a brutal and perhaps deadly reaction.
This is the political battle that’s now playing out publicly in the Rittenhouse trial. The trial is working as an official test of whether the Black Lives Matter protests of the past several years were legitimate, or whether deadly force is required against any challenge to white control and its violent enforcement of order.
This is partly why the trial is receiving more public commentary and displays of emotion than the trial of Ahmaud Arbery’s killers. That trial has much more in common with killing of Trayvon Martin, the 2013 spark that began the BLM movement, and will reflect on whether the justice system has changed in this short time. It is hugely important, and will also reflect attitudes on vigilantism and the threat to people of color, likely even more so. The Rittenhouse trial is different however, because it is a continuation of the polarization of the protests themselves.
The public perception of whether or not the teenage killer was justified have almost nothing to do with the facts of the case. We can argue those circumstances ad nauseum without convincing each other of anything. After all, Rittenhouse has admitted to the shootings. Instead, our personal opinions on his guilt stem from how we sided during the protests. Do we think police must be defended with deadly force against any perceived threat? Can others act on their behalf? Or do we think it’s unnecessary, that the lives of protesters and suspects are just as valuable as anyone else’s?
So far, the trial appears to reflect those opposing political views, but it should ultimately rest on the specific facts of Rittenhouse’s exact actions and state of mind before, during and after the deaths. No matter how it ends, however, it will still be seen as a referendum on whether we believe black lives do indeed matter, even though all three of his victims, one survivor and two dead, were white.
