Bleeding America

I wanted to celebrate the historic conviction of Officer Derek Chauvin for murdering George Floyd. I wanted to sing the praises of President Joe Biden and Minnesota Attorney General Keith Ellison for showing that authority can do the right thing. I wanted to join the chorus who cheered for teenager Darnella Frazier and the “bouquet” of brave Minneapolis witnesses who recorded Floyd’s horrific murder and tried to stop his police executioners and refused to let the Minneapolis Police Department cover up another murder. And I wanted to honor the 12 men and women on the jury — six white, six nonwhite — who performed a “deep service,” returning a guilty verdict on all three counts, instead of letting even one holdout force a hung jury, which is what many observers of the Chauvin trial expected. Yes, I wanted to celebrate all this — the saving of America’s soul, which is not being too dramatic, considering what was at stake in this most publicized of all police violence trials.

And then the cops killed another Black person — this time a teenage girl in Columbus, Ohio named Ma’Khia Bryant. And the body of Daunte Wright — killed by another cop during a traffic stop in suburban Minneapolis during the Chauvin trial — is not even cold yet.

And so, even as Derek Chauvin was led out of courtroom in handcuffs, we still can’t breathe, waiting for a cop somewhere in America to shoot and kill another African American citizen for no good reason.

“We don’t get to celebrate nothing,” said KC Traynor, one of the demonstrators who gathered outside the Columbus Police Department last night. “In the end, you know what, you can’t be Black.”