1 Burst results for "Ashley Woodard"

WABE 90.1 FM

04:37 min | 1 year ago

"ashley woodard" Discussed on WABE 90.1 FM

"Us and death to antifa That unite the right rally in 2017 ended in violence with the killing of Heather heyer In opening statements in the civil case last week against the organizers one defendant dropped racial slurs in referenced Adolf Hitler's mein kampf in a federal courtroom This week opening statements are also expected in the murder case against father and son Gregory and Travis mcmichael along with William roddy Byron The white men are accused of murdering ahmaud Arbery a black man jogging in the neighborhood Central to jury selection were questions on race from the defense as a sign of whether a juror could be impartial Do they believe the confederate flag is a racist symbol Do they support the Black Lives Matter movement Here's defense attorney Jason Sheffield posing a question to potential jurors Who here agrees that people of color are not treated fairly or equally in the criminal justice system The trial against Kyle rittenhouse is also underway He was 17 when he crossed state lines with a semi automatic weapon He was underage so it was not legal for him to have a gun And he shot and killed two people and wounded another at antiracist protests in Kenosha Wisconsin that erupted after a police officer shot a black man in the back repeatedly Rittenhouse is claiming self defense In that case the judge has already ruled the people rittenhouse killed and wounded can't be called victims Here's judge Bruce Schroeder in court The word victim is a loaded loaded word And I think alleged victim is a cousin to it While the victims here weren't black they were at protests in the defense of black lives says Ashley woodard Henderson Co executive director of the highlander research and education center in Tennessee and a leader in the movement for black lives She says watching the three cases unfold We're seeing the disproportionate impact on black lives It's saying whose lives matter and our valuable and whose are not We're seeing judges say that the prosecution can not call the folks that were murdered or that were injured by shootings at those folks can't be called victims but that the prosecution can call them arsonists Looters rioters et cetera Brandon busky is the director of the criminal law reform project at the American civil liberties union One of the main things that unites this when you look at the allegations is you know these are these are all defendants either in criminal cases or in the civil case in Charlottesville who have been accused of actions in service of trying to defend the legacy of white supremacy and white dominance in this country And I think that's one of the most striking things that links all of these trials He points to the white vigilantism in the killing of ahmaud Arbery and the folk hero status of rittenhouse who killed people He crossed state lines to a place he's not from arm to confront antiracist protesters and people crowdfunded to pay for his defense One of the other common threads that I think we need to pay attention to here is the complicity of law enforcement Now now obviously these were not cases of police directly shooting individual as what happened with the uprisings of the past number of summers not just with George Floyd References the concerns and allegations about law enforcement's complicity or willingness to ignore threats in each case The outcomes of these three court cases will be referendums on race and white supremacy in this country he says but the emboldening of white nationalists and white supremacist groups Those under currents are going to require a much broader social reckoning than what these trials can provide When he's watching for are the narratives being spun in court and what the jury's ultimately decide about who deserves to be punished Leila Fulton and pyrrhus You're listening to all things considered from NPR news At four 18 you're listening.