The Rittenhouse case and this case were examples of the American legal system working the way it was supposed to work. There were significant differences in what occurred and that was reflected in the legal outcome - I'm with Joe Duncan on this one. Arbery was chased down and murdered as he attempted to defend himself - what he did before he was chased down is irrelevant to the legal matter at hand. The same is also true of Rittenhouse, the fact he had a gun and was policing a riot is inconsequential to the fact he shot three people whilst defending himself. In both these cases the legal system has given the correct legal interpretation. Progressives and Conservatives alike have both won their day in court - but we must be careful about muddying the two cases together.

I went into the study's you provided and they're very interesting and throw up some interesting figures. I think we have to be a little careful with these stats though, because these figures are calculated without any wider contextual information. A flaw the authors also acknowledge within the paper itself.

"If the facts of white-on-black homicides differ from the facts associated with black-on-white homicides such that one routinely occurs as part of self-defense and the other as part of a street crime, then there is no animus. The data here cannot completely address this problem because the setting of the incident cannot be observed. Thus, the analysis is at risk due to omitted variable bias, where the lack of a data element leads to a spurious conclusion."

I don't think we can yet draw the conclusion that the entire judicial process is racist. I think there are other variables at play that present a more complicated model and we should be careful of holding up simple answers to difficult problems. A premature Eureaka moment will leave us soggy and standing in the street with our genitals cooling in the breeze. After all, we've had two court cases in a few weeks where the American legal system and trial by jury has seemingly made the right choice when faced with the 'self-defence' defence.

Here's the Penguin take on Rittenhouse in case you're interested. https://medium.com/lucid-nightmare/kyle-rittenhouse-is-acquitted-once-again-america-misses-the-point-8a41ab56c969