(From left) Ahmaud Arbery’s killers: Gregory McMichael, William “Roddie” Bryan, Travis McMichael. | Source: Glynn County Sheriff’s Office
The three white men who took part in the murder of Ahmaud Arbery are appealing their federal hate crime convictions, and for two of the convicts, attorneys appear to be arguing that just because they’re racist doesn’t mean the racism made them do it.
According to CNN, the defense lawyers for Travis and Greg McMichaels and William “Roddie” Bryan filed their appeals earlier this month. Bryan’s attorney appeared to be arguing that his client isn’t all that racist while simultaneously arguing that his racism doesn’t automatically make him guilty of a hate crime. And he had no issue with throwing Travis all the way under the white supremacist bus in making his contradictory arguments.
“The evidence against Bryan did not present a man who saw the world through a prism of racism. He was not obsessed with African Americans such as his codefendant Travis McMichael,” attorney J. Pete Theodocion wrote in his filing. “There is simply not sufficient evidence in the record to suggest Bryan would have acted any differently on the day in question had Arbery been white, Hispanic, Asian or other. Every crime committed against an African American is not a hate crime. Every crime committed against an African American by a man who has used racist language in the past is not a hate crime.”
Yeah, Theodocion definitely needed to add that last bit about “racist language” because otherwise, he would have a lot of explaining to do regarding his non-obsessed-with-Black people client and his Klan-destine text conversations.
From CNN:
In a message to a friend on MLK Day in 2020, Bryan wrote to a friend, “Happy Bootlip Day.” The message was read aloud in court.
“I worked like a n***er today,” Bryan added in the message.
Another set of messages between Bryan and a friend on February 19, 2020 – four days before Arbery’s killing – discussed Bryan discovering his daughter was dating a Black man.
‘She has her n***er now,” he wrote, according to the messages quoted in court. The relationship remained an ongoing theme in his messages, Vaughan testified.
When someone sent Bryan a picture of his daughter and her boyfriend together on April 8, 2020, he responded, “Like I said, she don’t give a f**k about herself, why should we?”
So, Bryan is willing to disown his own daughter over her connection to a Black man, but his going out of his way to join a lynching party had nothing to do with his clear and passionate (one might even say obsessive) anti-Black hatred? I mean, OK.
I think it’s hilarious how the Tree Stooges of white supremacy keep pointing the finger at each other regarding whose racism is the most evident. Last year, the elder McMichael’s lawyer filed a motion to appeal the verdict noting that while Travis and Bryan are both on record as having used racial slurs and associated Black people “with criminality,” Greg is not. (He wasn’t caught in racist text conversations like the other two, but multiple people testified in court that he used racist language when describing Black people.)
It’s like all members of the three-man klan are passing around a revolver in a game of Racist Roulette. It’s arguably the most ironic form of white-on-white crime ever.
Anyway, while Bryan and Greg’s attorneys argued prosecutors failed to prove in court that their clients profiled, chased and murdered Arbery “because of” his race, Travis’ lawyer apparently gave up on that laughable argument and instead “focused on more technical matters to do with his convictions on attempted kidnapping and weapons use charges,” CNN reported.
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