Once again the Acton Institute sides with White Supremacy, justifying the outcome of the Kyle Rittenhouse verdict

On Saturday, Acton Institute researcher, Dan Hugger, post an article entitled, What the Kyle Rittenhouse trial taught America about assumptions, keeping peace. 

This Acton Institute post, like so many of their posts, attempts to use fancy academic terminology, a little bit of Old Testament scripture and a quote from their organization’s namesake, all to justify a political system that is rooted in White Supremacy.

The Acton writer early on states:

Lord Acton once wrote that the chief difficulty of the study of history is that “common report and outward seeming are bad copies of the reality, as the initiated know it.” 

Using Lord Acton’s cryptic language, the Acton writer makes the claim that journalists, pundits, and public servants gave us the wrong narrative about what happened in Kenosha, Wisconsin, both with Jacob Blake and Kyle Rittenhouse. In this process, the Acton writer never provides us with an example of the wrong narrative, but then he proceeds to provide us with the “unbiased narrative,” which included the claim that Kyle Rittenhouse was in Kenosha merely to protect a car dealership from vandalism. 

Dan Hugger, then tells us:

The questions of whether Kyle Rittenhouse lawfully possessed the firearm with which he fatally shot two and injured another and if he acted in self-defense has been settled by a jury of his peers in a court of law, which found him not guilty on all counts.

Ah, well, if the jury found Rittenhouse not guilty, then he must not have been guilty……sarcasm dripping.

What is instructive about the Acton Institute article are the following:

• There are no sources to substantiate any of the claims made in this article.
• None of the 3 people that Kyle Rittenhouse are named in the article, making it easier to accept the so-called self defense claim. Their names are Joseph Rosenbaum, Anthony Huber and Gaige Grosskreutz.
• There is no acknowledgement of the deep bias from the Judge in the Rittenhouse case.
• There is no acknowledgement that Trump officials provided talking points to reporters & elected officials, talking points that were sympathetic to Kyle Rittenhouse.
• In contrast to the Acton article’s claim about media bias, here is what the national media watchdog group FAIR had to say about the national news media handled the trial.

Towards the end of the Acton article, Dan Hugger provides us with the main point of the article, which is also rather instructive, when talking about what we should do:

This involves a rejection of violence by citizens and a commitment to maintain law and order by those in political authority.

This is the perfect response from those who want to protect systems of power. The public should reject violence, those in power should maintain law and order. We shouldn’t ever take to the streets, fight the system or use direct action to dismantle the very system that protects power and privilege, while punishing those who resist. 

In contrast to the Acton Institute article, here is an excerpt from Margaret Kimberely’s response to the Rittenhouse verdict on Black Agenda Report:

Kyle Rittenhouse is obviously a white supremacist, but so is Joe Biden, who received 90% of the Black vote. White supremacy is a job requirement for the presidency and Barack Obama signed on to that agreement just as much as his predecessors did. Biden was seen as a savior who would rescue the nation from Donald Trump, who is portrayed as the only racist who ever served as president when he was one of just 46 who fit the description. Biden wasn’t particularly concerned about the verdict and his initial bland comment is proof.  “Well look, I stand by what the jury has concluded. The jury system works and we have to abide by it.”

Biden’s nonchalant response is in keeping with his political history. After all he is the man who shepherded the 1994 Crime Bill through congress and bragged, “We do everything but hang people for jaywalking in this bill.” Biden is consistent, angrily blurting out in a meeting last year, “If it doesn’t count for y’all to hell with y’all!,” when he was asked for the bare minimum of using executive orders to thwart republicans, the people we are otherwise told to view as mortal enemies.

This is exactly why we should look to those from the Black Radical tradition to gain insight into what the significance of current events are, especially since this tradition always provides a systems critique.