🎙️ Voice is AI-generated. Inconsistencies may occur.
The guilty verdict issued in the trial of Derek Chauvin for the killing of George Floyd is being heralded as a key moment in the fight against racist police violence. But as the country was congratulating itself for that verdict, news was swirling about police involvement in the shooting deaths of 13-year-old Adam Toledo, 16-year-old Ma'khia Bryant and 20-year-old Daunte Wright. 24 hours hadn't elapsed since the conviction before another Black man was killed by police, Andrew Brown Jr., in Elizabeth City, N.C. The circumstances in each of these cases is different, but in each instance, cops shot and killed young people of color seemingly without hesitation.
So while President Joe Biden called the Chauvin outcome a "giant step forward in the march toward justice in America" and Speaker Nancy Pelosi thanked Floyd for "sacrificing your life," I can't share in their optimism. For the police, it has clearly been business as usual when it comes to violently responding to Black and brown people. Only the most violent response will do, while armed white alleged killers like Robert Aaron Long, the suspect accused of murdering eight people in Atlanta last month, are arrested alive.
Stop gaslighting us with all this talk about justice.
Racial gaslighting tries to force us to question our sanity, our lived experiences, even what we see with our own eyes. It demands we doubt our thoughts and feelings in favor of an "objective" set of facts that are wielded as weapons—sometimes even by good white people—to maintain a social order that traps people of color at a disadvantage.
I have news for you: It's just not going to work anymore.
We will not be gaslit into doubting what we see with our own eyes.
The Chauvin guilty verdicts weren't a watershed moment, the result of a new and just America. They were the result of the brave actions of a 17-year-old Black girl, Darnella Frazier, who had the guts to film Floyd's murder. They were the result of sworn statements from people who saw the murder, and expert testimony presented during the trial that showed that Chauvin "violated department policy." It took all that evidence plus protest marches that spanned the globe, comments from President Biden and pleas from the Floyd family to get a "guilty on all three counts" verdict that we are now told we should be thankful for.
In a small, limited way, I am thankful. As a Black activist from Texas who has fought discrimination, I believe the guilty verdict is a good step. It is a cause for relief. But it's not fairness or a cause for rejoicing, nor will it bring George Floyd back to life.
The defense by Chauvin's legal team was part of a 400-year long persecution of black people that has cloaked the truth behind linguistic spin to convince us that there's something wrong with us. The initial report of Floyd's death from department officials read, "Man dies of medical incident during police interaction." We'd soon see the video showing that the "medical incident" was Chauvin's knee on Floyd's neck as he cried "I can't breathe."
Black people like me are told if we obey the cops, don't make any sudden movements and don't talk back, we won't be harmed. In other words, it's our fault when law enforcement don't control their trigger fingers. In other words, more gaslighting.
The Chauvin verdict is a drop of accountability in a sea of injustice that has led to the killings of more than 1,000 unarmed people by police between 2013 and 2019. One-third of those killed were Black. It happens over and over again to people like Daunte Wright, who was shot by Officer Kim Potter after a traffic stop, Tamir Rice who was playing in a public park, and Breonna Taylor who was murdered while she slept in her own home.
White Americans can shake their heads and wipe the bodies of color from their minds as the news media moves on. Or they can understand that calling the police can be a death sentence for people of color.
White people need to see that police violence that results from systematic racism as something they must dismantle instead of seeing it as something to sympathize with Black people over. The aggression isn't sad or unfortunate. It's a cruel, unjust and ugly reflection of what we are as a country.
So don't call 911 when you see a Black person jogging in your neighborhood, bird-watching in a park or selling loose cigarettes. Instead of increasing the likelihood that we will become victims of murder by cop, ask yourself if someone is in danger. If not, let it go.
Let's get cops out of the business of harassing people for minor traffic infractions like expired tags or air fresheners hanging on their rear-view mirrors. Refocus efforts on the most serious of crimes instead of increasing the likelihood that we will be victims of murder by cop.
And for God's sake, stop gaslighting us with all this talk about justice. Trust me, when we are eligible for justice, we will know it, and we will rejoice. Until then, don't shut us down while we try to tell you what is happening to us. Don't make us think our eyes are faulty. It's your conscience that's mistaken if you think that's an appropriate response.
Michael Crawford is a New York-based activist who writes about race, identity and culture. Follow him on Twitter @dmcrawford.
The views expressed in this article are the writers' own.
