After the Derek Chauvin murder trial some are saying that there is finally justice. But is it really justice? I think it is more accountability than justice. Chauvin was held accountable for his actions and found guilty on all three counts against him, but we still have a long way to go before there is justice.
Justice would be this verdict being the norm instead of a rarity in a court of law.
I actually wasn’t too worried about the verdict this time around. We all saw the murder take place thanks to a teenager filming the entire thing for the world to see. But was I nervous waiting for the verdict to be announced? Yes. And a whole lot of other people were too. Especially a lot of Black people because they’ve been around this block way too many times.
A friend described this verdict to me as this generation’s “O.J. Moment” and I have to agree with that. I was working at The Houston Chronicle when O.J. Simpson was acquitted, and there was much rejoicing around the office. The court had finally worked for a guilty rich Black man the same as it had always worked for guilty rich white men.
(Of course that trial led to years and years and years of the Kardashians and that, in my opinion, was not a win for the U.S. But I digress.)
So what now? What do we do to make sure that accountability in these situations is the norm?
Do we start with the police?
Do we start with education?
I have a good friend who is a Lieutenant in a county sheriff’s department not too far from Milam County and we’ve had good conversations about this topic since police officers killing Black people has become an epidemic in our country. He comes from a military background and has a master’s degree. Any secondary education is a rarity in his department, but a master’s degree is almost unheard of.
He says education is key for the police force, but then you’d have to pay them more. And where do we come up with that extra money?
My take would be that any education should be centered around supervisors learning how to recognize and get rid of the bad cops. Chauvin was a horrible cop with 22 complaints and internal investigations against him over his 19 years in the department, only one of which resulted in discipline. He should have been removed from the equation years ago.
There are far more good cops than bad ones. And good cops do their job – for the most part – without any secondary education. So it isn’t them who need to be educated.
Pulitzer Prize-winning American journalist Chris Hedges perhaps says it best where education is involved, “We’ve bought into the idea that education is about training and success, defined monetarily, rather than learning to think critically and challenge. We should not forget that the true purpose of education is to make minds, not careers.”
It seems to me that this is the time to make changes wherever they need to be made. When trained police officers shoot because they fear for their lives while untrained Black people are expected to act normally with a gun in their face, the time is definitely ripe for change.
The changes we make should save lives before they are lost. We need to address the system that allowed this to happen in the first place. The changes should transform public safety in ways that serve all communities and all people.
Congress can get involved as well, but true change should come from inside the collective police forces across the US. And most of all they need to recognize that changes must happen and they must want change to happen. The latter will be the more difficult part of creating change in some places.
Smarter folks than me will have to figure it all out, but there’s no time like the present to get started.—K.W.C.
- Log in or Subscribe to post comments.