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Derek Chauvin’s Fate Is A Test For Our Democracy

Former Minneapolis police officer, Derek Chauvin.

Derek Chauvin’s Fate Is A Test For Our Democracy

By Dr. Patrick Graham, PHD
Guest Contributor

Dr Patrick GrahamThere was a distant emptiness in the Minneapolis police officer, Derek Chauvin’s, eyes, as he looked away, while rocking his knee, deeper into the neck and vertebrae of George Floyd.

The look of Chauvin, during the killing of Floyd, reminded many African Americans, and introduced to others, the casual disregard too many Black people encounter in our criminal and judicial systems.

Chauvin’s act and trial are yet another test of the resilient hope for democracy, Black patriots have demonstrated for themselves and others, during transformative moments in our country.

As the trial of Chauvin starts its second week, many African Americans are acting jurors, in another case, deeply entrenched with Chauvin’s fate and the empty look we recognize, the belief in our democracy’s concepts of justice and inclusion for all Americans.

Floyd’s case, and others, such as Breonna Taylor and Ahmaud Arbery, are part of a Black experience at the center of our democracy’s victories and struggles with justice and inclusion. No other social group has been as deeply involved with challenging America to live up to its democratic principles, and opening the doors of democracy for others, during critical transformative moments in our history.

For example, during the struggles to abolish slavery and Reconstruction, following the Civil War, African American desires for education and freedom led to voter rights movements, women’s full citizenship movements, and public schools, in the shadows of the 13th, 14th, and 15th Amendments.  The modern civil rights movement spawned the student movement, the gay liberation movement, new feminists, and others, during the 1960s and 70s.

Chauvin’s fate may call into question the authenticity of American desires for true equity and justice, and influence the path our current transformative movement and activists take, going forward. 

Today’s Black Lives Matter movement has grown out of the protest traditions, and ambivalence of Black suffering, discontent, and optimism for change.  These historical and present desires for democracy are part of an African American resilience that influences our civic and political landscape, for all people.

Floyd’s death and Chauvin’s trial is a test of that resilience, in the context of this generation’s transformative moment, and may further influence the trajectory of our democracy.

There is no doubt that Floyd’s murder, and others, catalyzed the protests of 2020 in the middle of the COVID-19 pandemic. They also created a transformative mood that was less patient, and larger, than freedom movements of the past.

We have witnessed this impatience and new determination in debates, over resourcing of police; higher voter participation; questioning of immunities, provided to officials in our criminal and judicial systems; corporate attention to racial equity; and dialogues, across social and mainstream media platforms.

Chauvin’s fate may call into question the authenticity of American desires for true equity and justice, and influence the path our current transformative movement and activists take, going forward.

In my opinion, any verdict in Chauvin’s case will provide fuel for a continued transformation and racial reckoning of America’s democracy, no matter the spin or narrative. Even as the defense uses old illogical tactics of questioning Floyd’s character and opioid use, to blame the victim, awakened Americans are too familiar with the narrative’s falsity.

Interestingly, the common description for White opioid users is empathy and victimization, which further illustrates the disregard for Black lives, and Floyd’s, in particular.

I digress, back to Chauvin’s fate. A guilty verdict means we will have to consider the immunities, afforded to law enforcement and officers of the court, as instruments of our democracy. Any other ruling will call into question those same immunities and our faith in democracy, with harsher realities.

Ultimately, African American liberation advocates, and our allies, must still hold America’s systems to the highest democratic standards. Our Black intellect, hope, and resiliency are gifts we owe to ourselves, which continue to create possibilities, for others as well.

Dr. Patrick Graham is a public and social sector leader, with over 20 years of executive-level and equity policy experience. He currently serves as a Senior Policy Advisor for the City of Richmond and Executive Advisor for ReWork Richmond. Dr. Graham has led and served on several advocacy boards and committees such as the National Fuels Fund Network, National Urban League Workforce and Education Committees, North Carolinas Social Services Board, U.S. Census Complete Count Committee, Chair of Advocacy Committee for North Carolina Workforce Boards, and several other appointments.

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