Gianna Floyd’s prophesy
26th April 2021 · 0 Comments
The whole world breathed a collective sigh of relief when George Floyd’s murderer, ex-cop Derek Chauvin, was found guilty of all charges levied against him. The Floyd family cried tears of relief and gratitude, civil rights leaders hailed the historic moment as a turning point, and President Joe Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris called the family to share their small modicum of justice.
Biden reminded the family of the words spoken by then-6-year-old Gianna Floyd, George’s daughter, who said her daddy “changed the world.”
Indeed, when Darnella Frazier’s video of George Floyd’s May 25 killing went viral, it did change the world. The cruel, torturous murder of Floyd caused by Chauvin’s kneeling on his neck for nine minutes and twenty-nine seconds was too depraved to ignore.
Floyd’s cries for his dead mother to help… “I can’t breathe,” and his narration of his own death “You’re gonna kill me,” and “I’m through,” sparked the Summer of Reckoning in 2020. People protested, memorials were erected, athletes wore the names of unarmed Black people shot by cops on their basketball jerseys and messages confirming Black Lives Matter. Football players wore the names of the dead on their helmets. People were also protesting the senseless killings of Breonna Taylor, 26, Elijah McClain, 23, Rayshawn Brooks, 27, and other unarmed Black people.
Yet, less than an hour after Chauvin’s conviction, Ma’Khia Bryant, 16, lay dead on her front lawn, shot by an Ohio cop, as the parents of Daunte Wright, 20, finalized his funeral. Wright was shot and killed by Kim Potter, a 26-year veteran of the Brooklyn Center, Minnesota Police Department. Potter claims she “accidently” pulled her gun instead of her taser. Adam Toledo, 13, was killed by a Chicago policeman on the first day of Chauvin’s trial, while his hands were up. And last Wednesday, Andrew Brown Jr. was unarmed and fleeing in his car when he was fatally shot by North Carolina police.
Things have changed thanks to Floyd and the other martyrs, whose lives were stolen, and 17-year-old Frazier whose video sparked a non-violent revolution. What has changed is the recognition, finally, that there is an epidemic of racism that whites in powerful places have allowed to exist and who justify the actions of cops who kill unarmed Black people with impunity.
Civil rights leaders, President Joe Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris, U.S. Attorney General Merritt Garland, and Minnesota AG Keith Ellison, whose brilliant team of lawyers prosecuted Chauvin, have all acknowledged the existence of structural and institutional racism that exists in all facets of American life. On police forces, in the military, state houses, police juries, local governments and on Capitol Hill, white supremacists are acting out of their fear of a Black and Brown dominated America.
Cops are leading the charge, like the confederates of old. They are shooting first and asking questions later. We have to wonder, why is it that the first thing a cop does is draw his or her gun when interacting with Black and Brown people? Where is the intervention? Where is the de-escalation? Cops approached George Floyd’s car with guns drawn before they even said a word. They did the same thing with the Army lieutenant in Virginia. They confront us with guns, shouting demands, making us get out of our vehicles and on the ground. Really? They didn’t do that to Dylann Roof who killed the Mother Emmanuel Nine at their Bible study. They didn’t do that to the Colorado man who killed 10 people at a grocery store. They didn’t do that to the man who killed seven people at the Asian spas. They were all taken in alive. But they kill us in seconds. Tamir Rice, 12, was killed for playing with the pellet gun he got for Christmas. The cop who killed him jumped out of his car and killed this child in two seconds.
When it comes to prosecution, we have seen countless numbers of police officers not being held accountable, much less criminally charged when they kill unarmed Black people. The reality is that white people do not hold white people accountable, period. The initial charges against Chauvin were manslaughter and third degree murder. Both charges amounted to less jail time than the second degree murder charge Ellison, Minnesota’s first Black attorney general, brought. That’s the reason Minnesota Governor Tim Walz asked Ellison to lead the prosecution.
Cops are allowed to falsify reports, like they did in Floyd’s case. But for Frazier’s video, the report would have been accepted and Chauvin and his fellow murderers would be free to kill again.
And while Chauvin was found guilty of all three counts, many question rulings made during the trial. Why couldn’t prosecutors present results of blood work that showed that carbon dioxide did not cause Floyd’s death, since Chauvin’s defense attorney theorized, on the last day of the trial, that it contributed to Floyd’s death?
Why couldn’t Chauvin’s 18 citizen complaints be reviewed in court, four of which are alleged to have involved officer shootings? Yet a video of a previous arrest of George Floyd was allowed to be shown.
Daunte Wright’s mother, Katie, put it best. “Justice is just a word. Justice would be my son coming through the door with a big grin on his face, but I want accountability.”
Wright’s comment invoked the change that George Floyd’s murder has wrought. It is accountability. Henceforth, cops will be held accountable. State lawmakers are passing policing reform laws and the George Floyd Justice in Policing Act is now in the U.S. Senate.
Let’s hope that Gianna is right that her “daddy changed the world,” and now things will begin changing and justice for all becomes a reality; that the man with the big heart really won out over the man with a small heart; that maybe Sam Cooke is finally prophetic, and change IS gonna come; that Chauvin’s conviction is not just an act to calm the restless.
And while there is hope, we are left to wonder, is Chauvin a sacrificial lamb? Because when you think about it, Chauvin’s weapon of choice was his knee that was caught on film; the majority that have walked away have used guns.
This article originally published in the April 26, 2021 print edition of The Louisiana Weekly newspaper.
