I would urge everybody to read the NYT article about Arbery and his boyhood pal. It does a great job of humanizing him. It cuts through stereotypes.
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/05/10/us/ahmaud-arbery-georgia.html?auth=login-email&login=email
It's behind a paywall, but the title and subheader are: A Lifetime of Running With Ahmaud Arbery Ends With a Text: ‘We Lost Maud’
Ahmaud Arbery and Akeem Baker were best friends who treated each other as brothers. With one now gone, the other struggles to move on.
I'll post the last portion of the story below. I realize it's fashionable in some circles to be skeptical of the MSM. This story doesn't shade things so as to airbrush away Arbery's struggles, or his friend's struggles. But it does offer a recognizably human portrait. The first portion of the story has a lot to say about Arbery's brilliance on the football field. His friend, last name Baker, went to Morehouse.
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When Mr. Baker struggled with a general chemistry class, he called Mr. Arbery, who would buck him up as though they were in the locker room, down 14 points at halftime: “He told me when situations get hard, you’ve just got to get hard with it. In the end, you don’t just go through it. You grow through it.”
Mr. Baker graduated in 2016 with a degree in biology, then went to Boston University to work on a master’s degree in medical sciences, with a goal of continuing to medical school. But he grew depressed and began to doubt his long-held dream. He returned to the Brunswick area and took a job at a nearby chemical plant.
Mr. Arbery had left town briefly after high school to attend a technical school but had eventually returned to the Brunswick area, too. Mr. Baker said Mr. Arbery had recently got a job doing landscaping work with his father and was also working at a truck wash.
The friends were busy and did not see each other as much anymore, but it was clear to Mr. Baker that Mr. Arbery was also struggling. He was still living with his mother. He was feeling worn down by the 9-to-5 life. He had been convicted of shoplifting a couple of years ago.
Mr. Arbery knew that his friend was the better rapper, and he encouraged him to drop the sciences and to pursue a career in music. With that in mind, Mr. Baker left the Brunswick area again, this time for New York City, in August 2019, to pursue a hip-hop career.
The last time he spoke with Mr. Arbery was a few months ago. It was one of those cursory exchanges of new contact information, with a promise to talk later, at more length.
On Friday, hundreds of protesters packed the streets of Brunswick, calling for justice and calling out Mr. Arbery’s name.
Across the country, thousands of runners used the hashtag #IRunWithMaud as they ran 2.23 miles — representing the date of Mr. Arbery’s death — on the date that would have marked his 26th birthday.
Mr. Baker was with Mr. Arbery’s family at his grave site. It was Mr. Arbery’s birthday.
Now they were both 26. A pandemic had upended the world, and Mr. Baker felt adrift. Sometimes he wished to be called a musician, and sometimes he did not. He was unsure what he would become or how he would get there. He knew he needed a friend’s advice.
He said he was still talking to Mr. Arbery.