Letters to the Editor: Ahmaud Arbery’s killing was heinous, but it wasn’t a surprise

To the editor: I was pleased to learn of the arrest of Gregory and Travis McMichaels 74 days after they allegedly shot and killed Ahmaud Arbery, a 25-year-old black man who was jogging in Brunswick, Ga.

While many Americans were shocked by this wanton cruelty, committed in broad daylight on a quiet residential street, most black people were not at all surprised. As a collective, we have been bedeviled by such terrorism — sometimes sanctioned by the government — since the founding of this nation.

Three-time Olympic gold medalist Tianna Bartoletta, a black woman, expressed the challenges facing African American joggers in a recent New York Times interview: “I’ve run through streets in Morocco, Italy, Barcelona, Netherlands, China and Japan, and it’s only in my home country that I wonder if I’ll make it back home.”

What a pity.

Legrand H. Clegg II, Compton

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To the editor: Some can try to rationalize the recent shooting of an unarmed young man in Georgia, but isn’t it evident that racism played an important part, if not the only part? Isn’t it also clear that racism is on the rise and being fueled by some high-level political leaders?

The only way to fight racial intolerance is to stand up to it. Some simply lack the courage to do so.

Edward A. Sussman, Fountain Valley

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To the editor: The coronavirus has struck the world just as the 1918 influenza pandemic did a little more than 100 years ago. Unfortunately, the shooting death of Arbery in Georgia last February also took us back 100 years.

The vicious attack on a black runner, shot down by two white men, should shock all Americans. The video of the shooting makes Arbery’s death look like a modern-day lynching, and it took more than two months for his attackers to be arrested.

I’m sure we’ll get a vaccine that will conquer the coronavirus long before we discover a cure for racism and hatred.

Richard H. Katz, Los Angeles