WHAT DEREK CHAUVIN TRIAL TEACHES US
By Ducasse Alcin
Far from calming people down, the modest sentence of 22.5 that the judge inflicted on Derek Chauvin has triggered some angry reactions in the black community who, by all means, expected a more serious jail time for the former police officer. The unsatisfactory sentiment is understandably legitimate when you consider the level of haughtiness and disdain that Chauvin displayed while committing this heinous crime, showing no signs of remorse during the trial.
Throughout the year, black activists and George Floyd relatives joined their voices together to advocate for a punishment with the full extent of the law, knowing very well how often police officers get away with murders in these instances.
In the state of Minnesota itself, it’s rather extremely rare to encounter a situation where people from the police department get charged, let alone been convicted in the murder of an African-American. The fact and the matter is, before this incident, there’s a jurisprudence of only one circumstance about a police officer who had been convicted in the state history.
So it’s a pattern that the law enforcement force too often benefits from an attitude of leniency when it comes to accountability.
While we can agree that the moment is not for celebration, nevertheless we all can convey that 22 years are better than nothing. For, as I said before, there are countless cases involving police killings of innocent people that never go as far as this one does. So, to me, it’s an important step in the right direction.
That being said, neither good nor bad decision of the judge doesn’t mean that the struggle for justice reform that’s so tirelessly campaigned about by some activists in the black community is settled concerning the outcome of the trial. When you compare the lengthy sentences people from black and brown communities get for lesser offenses than Derek Chauvin did, it is obvious that the need for some new settings has never been greater.
The failure of the justice system in the USA vis- à-vis colored people is a direct corollary of systemic racism. To fix it, they must address it upstream. Upstream means attacking it to its sources. Unless they do that, we’ll always have to mourn the killings of innocent people of color by law enforcement. It is inconceivable to see the proportion of black victims for a country whose majority is white.
Because let’s face it, these senseless killings keep happening for one reason and one reason only: those who wear uniforms continue to identify our black young men as potential threats based solely upon the color of their skin. In other words, racism.
Hence, injustice and systemic racism are inextricably linked. If the USA wants to fix the broken justice system, there’s no other option than to start punishing those who violate the law, those who are abusing their authority while carrying a gun with the same severity as anyone else. There shouldn’t be double standards. There ought to be more trials like Derek Chauvin’s case. Otherwise, every day the list of unarmed black man killings will continue to fill up our daily news. So this trial teaches us that freedom and justice are never easily granted. They have to be demanded with insistence and perseverance.
Ducasse Alcin
