Accountability?
I cried with the Derek Chauvin verdict. I wept at the awfulness of all of it. For everyone. I hope that the verdict provides the family and loved ones of Mr. Floyd some sense of relief. I hope it provides Black people a sense of progress. I really hope for that. I wouldn’t have wanted it to go any other way. Not at all. I believe Chauvin should spend the rest of his life trying to amend his actions. I hope it is accountability, but it doesn’t feel like that to me. At least it doesn’t feel like enough accountability because Chauvin wasn’t the only murderer. The whole of policing should be held accountable for George Floyd’s murder. The whole of police. Every single one. Policing should be abolished. #Abolish the police.
The whole of our education system should be held accountable for George Floyd’s murder. The whole of our financial institutions should be held accountable. The whole of our social service systems, our health care system, our mental health services, our real estate system, our prison systems. The whole of media, all of it, should be held accountable. All should be held accountable. Just like I should be held accountable for George Floyd’s murder and every murder of black, brown, and indigenous people. And so should you. White people need to be accountable for the systems we have created, uphold, and propagate that enable and defend the subjugation and murder of black, brown, and indigenous people.
Chauvin was doing what he had been doing and had probably been trained to do over the decades he was a cop. He learned it from our culture. From our schools. From our government. From the media. From all of us. He learned it from all of us.
Chauvin’s arrest and guilty verdict didn’t stop the killing of Daunte Write or Ma’khia Bryant or Andrew Brown or Matthew Williams. There have been 181 black people killed since George Floyd’s murder. 181. Where is the accountability?