Should we welcome the verdict? Yes, absolutely.
Take Your Pick
Take your pick. Was it the fading cries of not being able to
breathe? Or how about his fading pleas for “mama”? The
indifference of the other cops? Or how about the psychotic looking
expression of Derek Chauvin as he murdered George Floyd with his
knee on his neck, with his hands casually in his pockets? Maybe it
was Chauvin’s slight puff of the chest and casual re-arranging of his
uniform as he walked away after butchering an innocent Black man on
the streets of Minneapolis?
Ironically, Chauvin brought that serial killer look into the Court that
has just found him guilty of George Floyd’s street-show murder.
Only in white privilege America do we have a four-week trial,
broadcast around the world, for a murder we all witnessed as clear
as day.
Should we welcome the verdict? Yes, absolutely. If it had been
anything else, then the country would have no doubt experienced
civil unrest like nothing before. It is a crumb of comfort that, for
once, a murdering cop has actually experienced the full retribution
of the law. Yet there is so much more to go. George Floyd will
forever be remembered for paying the ultimate price that caused
even the most White of judicial systems to sit up and send one of
their own down for prison-time. Of course, we still have sentencing
of Chauvin to come in about eight weeks time. That we shall have to
wait and see…
While Black and non-White America can embrace Chauvin’s triple
convictions, it cannot though let its guard down. That’s because
there has to be fundamental and extensive reform of policing in this
country. And by that, we mean a policing system that does not
target roughly one third of the nation’s population as continual
threats and potential murder victims at the drop of a hat.
There is of course the ludicrous cry of “there’s always going to be
bad apples” in the police. What derisory nonsense. Imagine applying
the same to airline pilots. They are obliged to ensure that there are
no bad apples in their industry at all. And they do that day in and
day out. How about brain surgeons? Like to take your chances of a
brain operation with 3 to 5% of brain surgeons being “bad apples”?
Of course not. So, if those professions can have a gold standard,
why can’t the police? The bitter truth is that, still to this day,
American police have White privilege and establishment written
deep down in their DNA. Add to that how American cops have
become increasingly militarized, resembling some ghoulish type of
real-life Robo-Cop on steroids, and the whole shambles makes for a
sorry show that is perpetually rigged against non-White Americans.
That it took such an outrageous, egregious display, on video and
broadcast around the world (and forever more will be so) of George
Floyd’s death, to get us to the point where plain as can be murder is
actually prosecuted and convicted of just that, is a damning
indictment of not only the American judicial system but the White-
privilege based country as a whole.
Let’s be honest, what are the chances of a similar event occurring,
that of an innocent Black person again being slaughtered in an
indiscriminate yet discriminatory fashion? You wouldn’t bet against
it now would you? And that’s despite the conviction of former
officer Derek Chauvin.
The sort of change that the United States now needs is on a par
with, if not in excess of, the very Revolution that spawned its
existence. That of course is one of the eternal paradoxes of the
country – that it was born of Revolution yet has quickly grown to be
rigged and deferential to established power structures, including out
of control police. What that means in real terms is that the vast
majority of cops that kill in America will still continue to be not held
accountable.
George Floyd’s legacy will long live on as he will forever be seen as a
victim of a White privileged system gone more crazy and more
rancid than ever before. So then, let’s again take our pick. Do we
want the same old same old and yet more police brutality on our
streets? Or do we want not just something better, but something
deserved, something long overdue and that is a society, a people, a
country where all are free from discrimination, oppression, brutality
and death.