The Arbery Case Revisited

Two weeks ago I participated on a panel The Redemption Church hosted to discuss Ahmaud Arbery’s murder. My dear brothers Theon Hill and Reggie Champagne were co-panelists. Each of us were grateful for the opportunity to offer a distinctively Christian, race-conscious conversation designed to equip the Church to lament Arbery’s murder, and promote justice, mercy, and faithfulness—the weightier things of the law (Matt 23:23). Reflecting on our conversation, I’ve repeatedly asked: “What’s one thing I wish I had said?” My answer is always the same—I wish I shared Curry’s quotation. In his ground-breaking, heart-wrenching book The Man-Not: Race, Class, Genre and the Dilemmas of Black Manhood, Tommy J. Curry provides a multidisciplinary analysis of Black males and the distinctive racial evils they experience. Though rare, Curry argues that this attention to Black males is necessary. Why? Curry explains:

No racialized group is more criminalized, killed by homicide, or isolated from society as Black males.

It is this quotation I wish I shared two weeks ago. It is this quotation I recall when talking with Black male students or friends about their racialized oppression and sorrows. And it is this quotation I hear on repeat as I mourn the murder of George Floyd and the racist actions against Christian Cooper. White vigilantes killed Arbery after perceiving him as a potential criminal threat. Four Minneapolis police officers facilitated Floyd’s murder after deeming him a criminal. And one white women weaponized racist ideas about Black males to threaten, terrorize, and criminalize a Black male birdwatching in Central Park, the site of the infamous Central Park Five case. Curry’s right. I wish I’d shared his words to equip the saints to lament, resist, and remedy racism against Black males.