The image of disgraced former police officer Derek Chauvin’s hands cuffed behind his back is an indelible image.
America did right yesterday. At least for George Floyd.
Yesterday, in Minneapolis truth and justice were truly the American way.
A 17-year-old girl provided the truth. A shero with no special superpowers but for her smartphone. A high school girl not even old enough to vote changed history. With a push of a button, she bravely recorded a tragedy that should never have happened but one we can never erase from our minds.
Once viewed, there was no getting around the truth of the police brutality we all witnessed, a murder burned in our minds like a scalding poker leaving an ugly impression forever.
Darnella Frazier recorded the brutal murder of George Floyd spurring waves of protest and resulting in the guilty verdict of Derek Chauvin
Because of Darnella Frazier, we heard George Floyd gasping for air begging with “please, please, please.” Straining to speak we heard those all too sickenly familiar words “I can’t breathe” spoken as a black man struggled under the brutality of a police officer as he lay face down in handcuffs pinned to the floor. We watched in horror as Derik Chauvin pressed a knee against his neck.
For 10 minutes and 9 seconds, we watched a murder happen in real-time.
And when the truth can be heard and seen, laid bare so there is simply no room for doubt, justice really did follow resulting in 3 counts of guilty to Derek Chauvin. It was the way America is supposed to work.
Black Lives did seem to matter that day.
Whose Lives Matter?
But if you are black in America you know systemic racism is also the American way. As though our own hands are tied to change anything it is a hate that persists like a virulent virus we can’t truly seem to eradicate. That too is the truth.
Even as a 17-year old girl helped bring light to our justice system, in Columbus Ohio a 15-year-old black teenage girl was yet another victim, killed by police
Right before the jury reached that guilty verdict of Minneapolis police officer Derek Chauvin, 15-year-old Ma’ Khia Bryant was shot 5 times in the chest. The teenage girl who the police say threatened 2 other girls with a knife was fatally shot by an officer.
Columbus police officers were chanting “Blue Lives Matter” at the scene of the crime while the mother of the teenage girl was crying over the murder of her child. Minutes after the Derik Chauvin guilty verdict for murdering George Floyd, moments after killing a child, the police yelled “Blue Lives matter” to the black people that just witnessed it.
Our hands can no longer remain tied. There must be reform in our system.