Arms Raised
It was just past 5 p.m. yesterday.
I teared up immediately, because I knew that meant the jury had found Derek Chauvin guilty. I'm still tearing up as I write this.
Progress is difficult and infuriating in this country. The verdict was the first time since the state of Minnesota was founded--in 1858--that a police offer was found guilty for killing a black man.
It was a moment of progress, but there is so, so far to go.
Some people want to say the struggle for racial justice in this country is black versus white. It's not. It's black and white versus the white people who think that racism is a privilege of their race. It's black and white versus the segment of the police force who act like they're in a slave militia from the eighteenth century. It's black and white versus the white past and the people who cling to it.
We won't get there for a long time, certainly not in my lifetime. But it's a day to feel like maybe we can get there someday.
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