fbpx
Skip to content

Ashley Babbit and the Perils of Being a White Conservative

ser blanco y conservador en Estados Unidos, El American

Leer en Español

[Leer en Español]

The perils of being white and conservative in America. There are many. Ashley Babbitt, the Donald Trump supporter that was shot and killed by the U. S. Capitol Police during the January 6th breach of the congressional seat of government, is a case in point.

On Wednesday, April 14th, Federal Prosecutors decided that they would not file criminal charges against the unnamed police officer who fired his weapon, at close range, at the unarmed U. S. Air Force veteran. In no way is this intended to serve as an apologia or a rationalization of the unlawful act that occurred on that day. The point is to illustrate a glaring difference that exists in the process and application of justice and an ethical ambivalence that is subservient to ideology and its cultural commands.

Being white and conservative

There is a compelling double standard, both, in the moral and legal realm which the Babbitt case highlights. In effect, there coexists two different judicial systems in the United States today. If you are an unarmed black and are shot at and killed by a white officer of the law, irrelevant of the circumstance, there will be public, political, media, and corporate pressure to render this a systemic failure, unless the black American is conservative.

Typically, what will ensue will be well organized protests, expectedly prepared by communist movements such as Black Lives Matter (BLM) and Antifa, which in high probability will end up in riots, violence, looting, maybe arson, and the formation of criminal charges against the white police officer. This will happen in a question of hours.   

ser blanco y conservador en Estados Unidos, El American
“Clearly two different patterns of investigation and legal temperament were followed”. (EFE)

George Floyd and the more recent case of Daunte Wright are recent examples of this double standard in the criminal procedural investigation and the application of the law. We know the name of the police officers implicated in the death of Floyd and Wright. Do we know the name of the policeman who killed about Babbitt? Why don’t we have that information?

The answer is simple. Authorities in the cases of Floyd and Wright, caved in mob pressure and ceded the venomous call for “justice”, premised not as acts of potential police brutality or abuse of power, but rather an institutional racist criminal act, underpinned by the existing social and political order.    

Federal prosecutors in the Babbitt case took the necessary time to investigate the case and later, after a thorough analysis of the evidence determined that no criminal charges would be filed against the capitol police officer involved. The officer’s name was never made public to protect his privacy and that of his family.

The investigation to decide whether to present charges against the officer who killed Babbitt took over three months. In the cases of both Floyd and Wright, criminal charges were levied against the pertinent officers immediately, as was their arrest. Clearly two different patterns of investigation and legal temperament were followed.

It is truly regrettable when unarmed civilians die at the hands of police. Circumstances surrounding the white and black suspects and victims, also received different dosages of lethal response, in accordance with the variant of the situation. The siege in the U. S. Capitol Building, for purposes of comparison, was labeled by many as a riot.

The 2020 Spring and Summer witnessed over 600 of them across America’s cities carried out by communist BLM and Antifa. Cities such as Portland, Minneapolis, Seattle, and Washington, D. C., attested to violent arson attacks on federal property, including courthouses and police stations, as well as churches and businesses. This happened on multiple occasions. The public forces used tear gas, rubber bullets, and a whole host of non-lethal weaponry to confront the assailants. This protocol, however, was not followed in the U. S. Capitol Building breach. Why wasn’t the same restraint of deadly force employed exercised against the mostly Trump supporters, like Babbitt? Why have terrorist’s groups like BLM and Antifa rioters received preferential treatment?  

Peligros de ser blanco y conservador en Estados Unidos, El American
“The point is to illustrate a glaring difference that exists in the process and application of justice and an ethical ambivalence that is subservient to ideology and its cultural commands”. (EFE)

Floyd and Wright, effectively, were resisting arrest and struggling with police officers who were in the process of enforcing the law. Furthermore, both men had a dark criminal past, Floyd more than Wright. Floyd had been arrested previously on nine different occasions between 1997 and 2007, generally on drug and armed theft charges, as reported by Snopes.

Floyd served four years in prison after accepting a plea bargain for a 2007 aggravated robbery in a home invasion. Wright was arrested and charged with first-degree aggravated robbery in December 2019. Hennepin County District Court (Minnesota) documents obtained by Fox News reveal that, after having been released on bond, he transgressed parole on a weapons violation and had an outstanding arrest warrant.

The criminal background of Floyd and Wright does not give license to any person to kill them without cause. The question of the mitigating circumstances which took place while both men were in  pursuit of being arrested, remains a mystery as to whether the officers implicated in their murder, will receive a fair hearing.

The officer that killed Babbitt will never have to go through what officers, Derek Chauvin and Kim Potter will face. In the current cultural hegemonic realm, the unnamed U. S. Capitol Police officer was fortunate that he did not shoot a black man who could potentially garner the support of Marxist terror movements.

If instead of a white, conservative 15-year armed forces veteran who had served various tours in Afghanistan and Iraq with no criminal record, the unidentified policeman who shot someone with the skin color and the criminal background of Floyd and Wright, his fate would be most different.   

The Biden regime, the Democratic Party, and the complete leftist cabal that has fabricated a wild right-wing extremist conspiracy theory to justify cracking down on America’s conservative movement, should be asked, where are the white supremacist riots with the Babbitt killing? If there had been any truth to this unhinged leftist conspiracy theory, labeled by some as “Blue Anon”, then these white nationalist, far-right extremist group, would be rioting and causing the mayhem that BLM and Antifa have caused.

Perhaps, we would know the name of the officer who shot Babbitt and there would have been a trial. That would mean that America would only one moral and justice code and not two.

Julio M Shiling, political scientist, writer, director of Patria de Martí and The Cuban American Voice, lecturer and media commentator. A native of Cuba, he currently lives in the United States. Twitter: @JulioMShiling // Julio es politólogo, escritor, director de Patria de Martí y The Cuban American Voice. Conferenciante y comentarista en los medios. Natural de Cuba, vive actualmente en EE UU.

Leave a Reply

Total
0
Share