I need you all to remember this truth telling mama and one who followed her lead. They could have added hundreds of more stories.
The Chauvin murder trial (it’s not George Floyd’s trial) is built on this question: does kneeling on someone’s neck for that long have the potential to cause death? This isn’t about George Floyd. It’s about a police office murdering a man because he broke his department’s rules.
His own police chief said so in court. So did experts. Billions watched the murder occur. And the reason this is so important is that Breonna Taylor’s murderers haven’t been arrested. Neither have Sandra Bland’s.
Tamir Rice was 12-years-old when a police officer shot him almost immediately upon arriving.
Atatinia Jefferson was watching her little nephew in her home when a white neighbor called the police about suspicious activity. She saw a prowler outside her home, got her gun to protect the child, and was shot and killed by a police officer through the window. He never entered her home, never identified himself, and gunned her down.
Stephon Clark was standing in his grandmother’s backyard with his phone in his hand. Police officers arriving there shot him twenty times because they thought his phone was a gun as he stood in his grandmother’s backyard. Are the stories coming back to your mind yet? These are all recent.
You know who doesn’t get shot like this? White people. Not anywhere close to this rate. And that’s what we mean when we say that there is systemic racism in policing. And that’s why holding Derek Chauvin accountable for the murder he is charged with is so important.