The Verdict. The Violence. The Vileness.

While I am glad to see justice finally done, it took a 9-minute recording of George Floyd’s death, an entire movement, and thousands of people demanding accountability for Derek Chauvin to make it happen. There are countless other instances where the police have been able to avoid justice, because the judicial system is intrinsically biased towards cops. The police as a whole are still able to terrorize communities even though this one officer is thankfully getting put away.

As the entire world watched the trial that would determine whether this country would go up in instant flames or instead be relieved for a short while, another shooting occurred. We are immediately back where we started or more accurately, in the same situation we’ve continued to be in for centuries. Relief isn’t something we can bask in when the police are still roaming the streets with evil trigger fingers and increasing malice.

While the verdict for the trial was being read, the police have killed another child, a 16 year old black girl whose name will undoubtedly be another hashtag and whose story will be flooding the airwaves and filling our hearts and minds over the next 48 hours and then forever seared into memory. Her name will be added to the long list of others who should still be here today but have been ripped away from us because while this country has made it clear we want change, the curiously slow-moving powers that be continue to placate the masses with empty words and non-action. Her name was Ma’Khia Bryant - #MaKhiaBryant. She called the police for help and is no longer with us.

Leaders of this country are not dumb. They are not just learning about the severity of police brutality and racism this year or even last year, but are pretending to all of a sudden understand the urgency we all feel now. I’m not buying it. Not only do these systems need to be held accountable, but so do the people who are supposed to be representing us. Let’s stop dancing around the obvious. Structural and institutionalized racism is not a newly-founded phenomena that developed in the last few years. White supremacy isn’t a brand new ideology suddenly making waves with the election of Trump. People of color and vulnerable communities have known the police have on the most part not acted in their best interest for decades, hell, centuries. We are working, living, breathing, and sustaining a white supremacist society by continuing to talk around the the root of all of these problems and disregarding the history that got us here. Capitalism ties a large part of the issues we’re seeing together neatly, but there’s also a strange loss of nuance in our national conversations and stifling ways we are trained to think about societal change. Things take years to enact, it will take years to see incremental change, nobody wants change, change is too hard, don’t ask for improvements that are too complicated, our constitution is perfect and shouldn’t ever change. We should all dare to dream beyond what we may deem as reasonable, and really figure out what a nation looks like that isn’t steeped in greed, unfairness, and cruelty. We as a society should seriously think about what a country looks like that isn’t defined by production, plagued by rigid systems of political governing, and exclusively, dangerously protective of very few. We don’t need anyone’s permission to dream of something greater and to work on ways to institute how to create the more equitable, inclusive, and thriving country we want to see. Our representatives should know exactly what the community needs and show plans on how to institute change we want to see. If not, then we should rethink representation and what it looks like for our voices to be heard in ways that will better society, no more empty promises.

This verdict was meant to be a sort of relief from the pain we’ve been witnessing these past few weeks. It’s not something that would’ve stopped protests or even been an indicator to let up, but it would have been a small reprieve from all of the other injustices we’ve been fighting. But no, we cannot wholly relish in this verdict because the system that gave Chauvin a fair trial is the same system that gave him a gun and badge in the first place. It’s the system that puts away countless black people and has torn families asunder with nebulous laws and harsh sentences that only unearth the system’s ferocity not its integrity. I do sincerely hope that Floyd’s family finds even a sliver of peace after all of these months, but I’m sure they miss him everyday and though it’s such a significant ruling for this country, that family is still without the warmth and laughter of their son, their father, their brother, their family.

He should still be here. They should all be here. I am tired of seeing hashtags and I want to see some real change. I’m going to ask again, how many more hashtags must there be for a real overhaul to come? We cannot keep living like this and at some point, we simply won’t.