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.