Personal Essay

Did the Right Thing

Cop is guilty on all three counts

The jury marched into the courtroom and boldly and confidently pronounced the fate of the defendant. Found guilty on all three counts for the murder of George Floyd, Chauvin looked hyperactive or spastic as he heard the judge announce where he would spend the next ten years or more. I don’t know his demeanor since the mask covered so much of his appearance.

What is the life of a Black man worth?

It’s worth a place in history when the man is lynched by a cop whose moral compass is nonexistent and who is the worst representative of the criminal justice system.

Will this end all the inequities in a system that’s weighted against Black people? No, but it’s a start. Now people in every city in the nation will have to be retrained and reprogrammed to learn what is the right and proper and legal way to handle someone who may or may not have committed an offense.

How has this affected the people in Minnesota who have been out on the streets every night holding up Black Lives Matter signs?

I hope they hug each other and cry and laugh and feel relieved that the world is really round, that people do have a moral conscience, that police personnel make mistakes and do dastardly acts, that we have a democracy and not a government that views the world through a racist lens.

I applaud the jury and all who supported them throughout this ordeal. Too many black people have suffered at the hands of people in our criminal justice system, and fewer of them will suffer in the future. We will be able to point to this verdict on April 20, 2021 as the moment when equality took on another dimension, as the moment when white men and black men and Hispanic men and Asian men came together and celebrated their sameness and their shared humanity. We will all be one one day — the writing is on the wall.

We need to have more of these verdicts as the need rises to ensure that criminal justice professionals and legal minds don’t see this verdict as a one-in-a-million deference to Black Lives. This is not a “let’s pacify the black people.” This is let’s help black people learn that respect is something that they shouldn’t have to earn. They are born of a certain race and should be loved for that race and respected because they are human.

Many people in the next few days will point to this day as the measure of dignity that the Black man gained. Much overdue. If George Floyd were alive today, we wouldn’t have this win. That he had to die for it to come true is a horror show, but a horror show with a silver lining. There will be many congregations in synagogues, churches, and mosques all over this country and world giving praise for this verdict and excited to learn that the Civil Rights Movement is continuing and evolving and bringing younger people into its fold.

Vive L’Egalite and Vive George Floyd. May he RIP.