I don’t think, if pressed, Texas Gov. Greg Abbott would be able to imagine a scenario in which he would have a problem with a far-right white supremacist killing a left-wing protester. This probably sounds like an exaggeration. This probably sounds like I am being unfair.
But you know what? I would have thought, at one point, that it would have been an unfair exaggeration to say that Abbott or anyone else would gleefully pardon a man who told God and everyone that he was going to go to a Black Lives Matter protest to drive into a crowd of people and maybe kill some others, and then did exactly that. I would have said “No, that is too far. And if it’s not too far, it’s at least too obvious.”
But that is what Greg Abbott did yesterday. He pardoned former Army Sgt. Daniel S. Perry, an unhinged racist who did, in fact, tell God and everyone that he was planning to go to a Black Lives Matter protest, drive into a crowd of people and also maybe kill some other people, and then went and did exactly that. A man who regularly fantasized about killing Black people and then collecting their ears, drowning little white girls for having crushes on little Black boys, and whom psychological experts deemed “basically a loaded gun.”
Abbott claimed it was self-defense, because Garrett Foster, the 28-year old former Air Force mechanic Perry killed, was carrying a gun. A gun which no one but Perry saw him brandish at him.
Via New York Times:
The decision immediately followed a pardon recommendation from the state’s Board of Pardons and Paroles, whose members are appointed by the governor. Lawyers for the man, Daniel S. Perry, argued that he had acted in self-defense against the protester, who was carrying an AK-47-style rifle. […]
“Texas has one of the strongest ‘stand your ground’ laws of self-defense that cannot be nullified by a jury or a progressive district attorney,” Mr. Abbott, a Republican, said in a statement on Thursday. “I thank the board for its thorough investigation, and I approve their pardon recommendation.”
Clearly, Abbott sees this man as a hero. He’s sending a message with this that he fully approves of people going and killing left-wing protesters for fun and sport. He knows exactly who he is empowering here and he knows that others will follow Perry’s example.
Hell, Perry will probably do again it himself, sooner or later.
The only person who even came close to defending himself or anyone else that day was Garrett Foster, who was trying to prevent Perry from killing people and running them over with his car — which, again, was the reason Perry was where he was to begin with.
“They have sent a message to Garrett Foster’s family, to his partner and to our community that his life does not matter,” District Attorney José Garza wrote in a statement. “They have sent the message that the service of the Travis County community members who served on the grand jury and trial jury does not matter.”
There is a reason why the thing the Right and the some of the respectability politics advocates in the center hate the most is “woke.” Because “woke,” more or less, means paying attention, which many people would prefer not to do. People generally don’t want to pay attention to things that make them feel bad or that make them feel guilty or that mostly affect those they believe don’t really matter. They don’t want other people paying attention to things that make them look bad, or tearing down structures from which they benefit.
That is why people like Greg Abbott can so easily identify with people like Sgt. Daniel Perry. It’s just easier when the people protesting the injustice that no one wants to think about are the real villains.
Abbott and Perry are both, in their own way, doing a kind of “propaganda of the deed.” Perry did something horrible to make it so people would be afraid to protest injustice, for fear that someone like him would come and kill them over it. Abbott pardoned him, hoping that people would see that and know that he will absolutely let people like Perry go and kill them, should they feel like driving into some protesters and then taking out a few of them.
PREVIOUSLY:
Stuff like this is why the category of hate crimes was created: to give the federal government the ability to prosecute state-level crimes because of a persistent tendency of white majorities in southern states to simply ignore, acquit, or condone crimes against minorities. It was a bald-faced admission by the United States government that, with very good reason, it could not trust the white south to uphold even basic principles of either our democracy or rule of law.
Nothing about this makes me believe that anything has changed.
“Texas has one of the strongest ‘stand your ground’ laws of self-defense that cannot be nullified by a jury or a progressive district attorney,” Mr. Abbott, a Republican, said in a statement on Thursday.
So if Foster had shot Perry first, then Mr Foster would be getting the benefit of the doubt? The survivor gets to dictate the story?