Yesterday, Derek Chauvin was convicted on all three counts.
Obviously it’s the right verdict. Everyone in the country knows he committed murder.
I’ll never forget watching that tape. My wife still hasn’t watched it, after seeing how much of an effect it had on me.
What do you do in this situation? I don’t feel as though I have anything to celebrate. No one won anything. Everyone lost.
Every. Single. One. Of. Us.
But this moment isn’t about me. I will stand in the back, and give space to those who have been feeling as through they haven’t been able to breathe.
I will continue to live with a sense of optimism as it pertains to race in this country. Not because I think that people aren’t racist, but because I think that progress is inevitable.
I reflect on what it took to get to this verdict. This one verdict. The millions of souls who marched the streets. The protests. The signs. All of that, to convict one man, who murdered another man in front of the entire world.
When you look at it through that vantage point, it feels as though the mountain is too high. But I don’t feel that way. I feel as though this is will be a paradigm shift. An officer was finally convicted for killing a black man. It’s disturbing to even write those words out in full.
Change happens slowly, and then it happens all at once.
I hope this is a first step of healing, with so much work left to do.