A couple of weeks ago, my Aunt Lois had an errand to run in Brunswick, about 80 miles from where she lives in Savannah. She asked her older sister, my 84-year-old mother, to come with.
So the girls Thelma and Louise-ed it down Interstate 95 and exited onto Georgia 17 just west of their destination. They had gone a couple of miles when, on their right, they saw a low, modest, lozenge-shaped sign announcing the neighborhood of Satilla Shores in the median of a street running off to their right. An American flag was hanging nearby.
What they saw from the main road looked typical of coastal Georgia subdivisions, The soil is sandy where the grass stops, Spanish moss droops from the old growth live oaks that provide a canopy over the streets.
There are no sidewalks; low gutter hugs the shoulder of the road. There is no gate or guardhouse. Technically, Satilla Shores is outside of the city limits; Glynn County would be responsible for the upkeep of its roads and the beneficiary of its property taxes.
Had they taken a few minutes to drive around the enclave, they wouldn't have taken it for a genuinely upscale neighborhood like the ones further east on Jekyll, St. Simons or Sea Island, but they would have found it, for the most part, tidy and aspiring.
Some of the houses that back up to the Little Satilla tidal river (not to be confused with the Satilla River tributary that goes by the same name) would go for $400,000 or $500,000 if we are to believe Zillow, but away from the river most of the homes fall in the $165,000 to $225,000 range. A lot--and there are a number of them available--would sell for more than $60,000 without waterfront footage; about four times that amount with it.
Had they driven through the subdivision, they would likely have seen some homes they liked and some they didn't care for. They would have clucked at some people's taste and might have been just a little unnerved by the preponderance of "No Trespassing" and other signs. But their overall impression might have been that it was a neighborhood similar to the ones they lived in; they would not have thought the residents of Satilla Shores much different from their friends and neighbors.
But even though my mother and my aunt are both dedicated snoopers of real estate, they did not drive through Satilla Shores. Because there is something distasteful in morbid curiosity, and they are not the sort of people who gawk at crime scenes.
They knew that at around 1 p.m. Feb. 23, 2020, with the air temperature at 62 degrees and the clouds high in the sky and a gentle breeze blowing, at a shady intersection deep into Satilla Shores a 25-year-old jogger named Ahmaud Arbery was chased down and killed by three men who thought he didn't belong there.
"They'd see our Bullock County plates and probably think we're Freedom Riders," Lois said as the Satilla Shores sign receded in her mirrors.
One should never have to explain a joke, but Bullock County, Ga., is hardly Berkeley, Calif. It's not even Pulaski County, Ark. But the imputation is that it's not Glynn County, Ga., either. Brunswick has a reputation as a racist community.
Last week, father and son Gregory and Travis McMichael and their neighbor William "Roddie" Bryan were convicted of murder and other charges in connection with Arbery's death. You probably know about the case--maybe you have seen the damning 36-second video, shot by Bryan, that these clowns thought would exonerate them.
It shows a Black man running away from armed pursuers. Maybe he'd stolen something. Or thought about it. It shows Arbery lunging at a man holding a shotgun. They bounce out of the frame, and we hear a shot, then they're back in the frame and the gun goes off again, its barrel no more than inch or so away from Arbery's chest. He turns and jogs a few steps before collapsing in the road on the yellow line.
Watching body-cam footage of the police's interactions with the McMichaels and Bryan, I don't think they did much wrong with regard to them. They treated the suspects the way suspects probably ought to be treated, with a certain courtesy and compassion.
Since they presented no threat, they were allowed their dignity. But meanwhile, Arbery was bleeding out in the street. Could they have saved him? It sure seems like they could have tried harder; it sure seems like they were more concerned with the traumatized white men who had witnessed the murder of Ahmaud Arbery than the innocent man dying in the street.
You doubt white privilege exists? Watch that footage and try to imagine things going down the same way were it a white man lying in the road and three Black guys explaining how they'd maybe seen him around before and that he looked like he was up to no good.
Within 48 hours of the murder, both Glynn Country District Attorney Jackie Johnson and Waycross County District Attorney George Barnhill--who took over after Johnson recused herself because until about a year before the murder she had employed Greg McMichael as an investigator in her office--had told police they saw no probable cause to charge anyone in connection with Arbery's death.
Barnhill wrote a letter saying he didn't see anything wrong with the way the McMichaels and Bryan had handled the situation. He wrote that what they did was "perfectly legal."
When the video got out--amazingly, it was offered up to the media as a way of proving that there was nothing wrong with the way the McMichaels acted--and everyone could see what happened, the Georgia Bureau of Investigation got involved, arrests were made. Now that former DA Johnson has been charged with obstruction of justice and a grand jury investigating the case is still in session, Barnhill could very well face similar charges.
We should never presume to know the hearts of others, but the McMichaels remind me of the kind of people who hold themselves superior to anyone who isn't, as they were, born white and American. They exchanged some racist text messages, while in jail Travis reportedly complained that "no good deed goes unpunished."
He thought he'd done the right thing. I've known guys like that. Guys who would sidle up beside you and casually drop racial slurs because, you know, you're just like them.
Trash like them.
Not all of us, son.
Philip Martin is a columnist and critic for the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette. Email him at pmartin@adgnewsroom.com.