R&I – FS
There was a text message from Travis McMichael, complaining about Black people at a local restaurant. “Need to change the name from Cracker Barrel to N****r Bucket,” he wrote.
There was a video, shared by McMichael on Facebook, of a Black boy dancing on The Ellen DeGeneres Show, the original music cut out and swapped for the racist song “Alabama N****r” by Johnny Rebel. The music went on and on for an uncomfortably long time, the dehumanizing lyrics blasting through the courtroom like something from a blackface minstrel show.
A comment under a video of Black Lives Matter protesters, in which McMichael wished for a semiautomatic rifle in order to shoot the people he described as “goddamn monkeys,” and another post advocating driving into a group of Black people with a vehicle.
Vaughn had analyzed the contents of cellphones and social media accounts for the government, building its case against McMichael; his father, Greg McMichael; and neighbor William “Roddie” Bryan, who are on trial for violating Ahmaud Arbery’s civil rights when they chased him down a public street and shot him while he was out for a run on Feb. 23, 2020.
PragDem