There was swift and stern reaction from African American elected officials and leaders following Friday’s acquittal of Kyle Rittenhouse in Kenosha, Wisconsin.
Rittenhouse was charged with four felony accounts and a misdemeanor after he shot and killed two people and wounded another during protests following a police shooting of Jacob Blake last year in Kenosha.
“I’m hurt. I’m angry. I’m heartbroken. The judge. The jury. The defendant. It’s white supremacy in action,” said U.S. Rep. Cori Bush, D-Missouri via Twitter,
“This (legal) system isn’t built to hold white supremacists accountable. It’s why Black and brown folks are brutalized and put in cages while white supremacist murderers walk free.”
One of the 12 jurors that acquitted Rittenhouse is a person of color.
St. Louis Mayor Tishaura Jones said the verdict did not deliver justice.
“The system favored someone who eagerly crossed state lines [and used] a deadly weapon. Black and brown people in this country have never and would never be allowed the same leeway or sympathy shown to Kyle Rittenhouse,” Jones said.
State Rep. Rasheen Aldridge Jr., said he is not shocked at the verdict.
“The truth is some of us are aware that the system is guilty as hell and is designed to work for a select few. That is why we must keep organizing and disrupting,” he said.
Jesse Jackson told a crowd in Kenosha on Tuesday, “we fight back.”
“Everyone who’s a demonstrator can be killed by a right-winger with[out] justification,” Jackson said.
“We have the right, the constitutional right, to march. He has the constitutional right to object. He does not have the right to kill us.”
Jackson said his Rainbow PUSH Coalition would host another march Sunday, Nov. 28, 2021, in Kenosha. It is expected to end outside the Kenosha County Courthouse, where Rittenhouse’s trial was held.
“Nobody has the right to go across state lines, come back with a loaded weapon, shoot three people and then go home,” Jackson said.
Derrick Johnson, NAACP president and CEO, called the verdict “a warning shot” on NBC’s “Face the Nation on Sunday, Nov. 21.
“It’s hard for African-Americans to reconcile what we witnessed in that trial. We have far too many individuals sitting in jail for crimes they didn’t commit or overcharged for crimes that were committed,” Johnson said.
Marc Morial, president and CEO of the National Urban League, said the verdict is a victory for vigilantism.
“American jurisprudence holds that that no one is above the law, that self-defense does not apply to those who provoke danger for themselves and others, that vigilantism is not to be tolerated or condoned. Today’s verdict flies in the face of these principles,” Morial said in a joint statement with Urban League of Racine and Kenosha Interim President James Hall, Urban League of Greater Madison President and CEO Ruben L. Anthony, Jr., and Greater Milwaukee Urban League President and CEO Eve M. Hall
“It is a painful affirmation that the nation still tolerates a dual system of justice – one for whites and one for people of color. It’s impossible to imagine police and the courts showing the same deference to a Black defendant accused of Rittenhouse’s crimes.”
Bush is also upset that House GOP members Paul Gosar, Matt Gaetz, and Madison Cawthorn have offered Rittenhouse an internship position.
“Just being real: every day it feels more and more dangerous coming to work. Not only do these members fuel violence. Now they’re actively recruiting someone whose sole qualification is killing people standing up for Black lives and getting away with it,” Bush tweeted.
“They must be expelled.”
