Derek Chauvin was pronounced guilty on three counts of second-degree manslaughter. We saw the video again, and we cried, were angered or were incredulous that the murder occurred. The United States was embarrassed globally. On a far deeper level, Chauvin forgot that under his knee was a human being dying from his cruel excessive force. Derek Chauvin ignored his own humanity. He dismissed any semblance of mercy, compassion, simple care for another human being who was helplessly pinned down on the ground under Chauvin’s physical weight. Chauvin was surrounded by a chorus of bystanders who pleaded with him to respond to George Floyd’s plea, “I can’t breathe.” But Chauvin had morphed into something else. Chauvin was beyond the law, beyond procedures, beyond boundaries and beyond urgent pleas. In this mindset, void of light, the policeman squeezed out the life of another human being. Chauvin was the personification of abominable cruelty. For nine minutes and twenty-four seconds, Derek Chauvin chose to be guilty. He had a choice and chose to murder.
Daniela Frazier, a seventeen-year-old teenager, was walking down the street on the grievous day of George Floyd’s death. Daniela was horrified by what she saw, but being a young adult of the twenty-first century, she raised her phone and clicked RECORD. Not a photo, not a sensational-few-seconds, but she recorded the slow torturous death of a Black man. She decided to capture the entire event in real time continuity. Chauvin looked fearlessly into the camera foreseeing no consequences to his life. The officer demanded that Daniela stop recording. The teenager did not comply; the video mode on her phone ate up the vile nine minutes and twenty-four seconds. George Floyd died on video, but Daniela Frazier regurgitated her video on social media. Instantly it was viral in the nation and around the globe! The atrocity was an electronic pandemic! She decided to record, to capture the gross abominable execution of a restrained human by another who was to safeguard life. Months later, Daniela responded affirmatively to the request that she take the witness stand during the trial of Derek Chauvin. For almost a year, she cried nightly because she felt she had not done enough to save the life of George Floyd. But she made decisions that testified that this courageous and insightful teenager would choose not to be a silent bystander to violence (on that day many bystanders gave passionate vocal cries to Chauvin to get off Floyd’s neck). She chose to be not guilty of indifference or hopelessness. Daniela Frazier was Not guilty of indifference or inactivity.
Daily, you and I must make decisions with reference to this core value,”…one nation, under God, with liberty and justice for all.” We can decide to distance ourselves from threats to this value, or to stand up for it. The despots of past and present come to power because ordinary people are silent. The question persists in confronting us, “Why does evil prevail?” The response is, “Because good people are silent.” Our choices will either save or destroy our democracy. Do we believe that all men and women are created equal? Guilty or not Guilty—we will be judged one way or the other in our time and in times to come.
Reflection
The American abolitionist Wendell Phillips did in fact say that “eternal vigilance is the price of liberty.” He added that “the manna of popular liberty must be gathered each day, or it is rotten.” p. 27
Snyder, Timothy. On Tyranny: Twenty Lessons From the Twentieth Century. New York: Tim Duggan Books, 2017.
Dorothy Watson Tatem, D.Min., ACC
Senior Associate
Next Step, LLC
Cassandra W. Jones, Ed.D.
CEO & President
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