May 07, 2021
Reckoning & Re-examining
April 20, 2021 marked a milestone moment in the fraught history of race relations in America. The day witnessed the rare sight of a white policeman convicted for murdering a black man in broad daylight in Minneapolis. The entire atrocity, captured on cellphone video by a 17-year-old girl, Darnella Frazier, brought home the horrifying spectacle of a human life slowly being snuffed out by one sworn to protect public safety, in front of a small group of agitated bystanders who refused to turn the other cheek to a blatant wrong. That crime ignited a protest movement. The trial was a convergence of race, justice, and policing.
Considerable credit for the conviction has to go to Minnesota’s Attorney General, Keith Ellison, who, in the words of Tim Walz, Governor of Minnesota, put together an ‘outstanding team’ to prosecute the defendant police officer, Derek Chauvin. Governor Walz complimented the Attorney General and his team on the “remarkable work.” Keith Ellison – a devout Muslim – served on Capitol Hill as a US Congressman from 2007 to 2019, and was the first Muslim to be elected to the US Congress. Upon returning home to Minnesota, he ran for Attorney General and won, the first Muslim in the United States to be elected to a statewide office.
The conviction of Derek Chauvin is a significant step in enforcing accountability and serving justice. Revealingly, most blacks had little or no faith in the fairness and efficacy of the US justice system, wherein most of their community are over-represented in jails and as criminal defendants. Jurors, historically, have been loath to nail police for the slaying of blacks. The new US Attorney General – the nation’s top law enforcement official – Merrick Garland, said in an April 19 interview to ABC News that “racism is an American problem” and the US does “not yet have equal justice under law.”
Commenting on the case, President Biden stated that racism is a “stain on our nation’s soul.”
The time has come to re-examine policing, including but not limited to, racial profiling, no-knock warrants (which cost the life of Breonna Taylor in Louisville, Kentucky on March 13, 2020) and use of choke holds (as in the case of Eric Garner, who was killed by police on July 17, 2014, while selling cigarettes on a New York City sidewalk. In a gun-infected culture, policing is a high-intensity job. Sometimes, even minor infractions provoke a blatant over-reaction of police, with guns drawn and loud screaming, creating a spiraling panic when the need is to de-escalate and stay calm. Even a serving black US Army Lieutenant in uniform was not inoculated from targeting when he was assaulted and pepper-sprayed by two policemen on December 5, 2020, in Windsor, Virginia.
This has been a common refrain that flew under the radar. What changed then? Cameras. But for the filming of the murder of George Floyd by Darnella Frazier, the blue-uniformed perpetrators probably would have escaped unscathed. The original press release issued by the Minneapolis police on May 26, 2020, described George Floyd having died “after medical incident during police interaction.”
The moment of reckoning has arrived. America needs to take a hard look inward to ascertain and rectify what is going on. Part of the problem was (is?) that the majority was impervious of what was happening to the minority and held deluded beliefs that the din of complaints was exaggerated and unjustified. US Ambassador to the United Nations Linda Thomas-Greenfield called slavery the “original sin” maintaining that America needs to “acknowledge imperfections.” For that, she was viciously attacked by the Wall Street Journal through its editorial of April 15.
There is a known saying: “Justice will not be served until those who are unaffected are as outraged as those who are.”
On Memorial Day, May 25, 2020, it was harrowing to see a grown man being pressed far beyond survivable limit under the knee of a policeman, calling out for his mother and crying, “I can’t breathe.”
An unsettled America is transitioning. Thanks to the martyrdom of George Floyd, many can exhale in relief and see in new beginnings a faint air of optimism. The protest movement it triggered splattered across the Atlantic, causing reputational damage to America. Bonded by pain, a common purpose was found. It was a clarion call for Haq and accountability. In some measure, justice was served.
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