While Heartening, the Chauvin Verdict Is Still an Outlier

By Matthew John

A pleasant surprise arrived on the annual stoner holiday known simply as 4/20. After a tumultuous year of monumental protests during the deadliest pandemic in recent history, a verdict on the Derek Chauvin case was finally reached. As CNN reported, “Former Minneapolis Police officer Derek Chauvin has been convicted on all charges in the death of George Floyd,” and “faces up to 40 years in prison for second-degree murder, up to 25 years for third-degree murder and up to 10 years for second-degree manslaughter.” 

Understandably, celebrations ensued.

But before the dust had settled, we received heart-wrenching news that another Black American had been killed by police. Sixteen-year-old Ma’Khia Bryant was gunned down by an officer in Columbus, Ohio 30 minutes before the Chauvin verdict was delivered. The celebrations seemed to fizzle out shortly after they began. This tragic incident is not only a microcosm of the larger systemic issue of police violence, but a lesson in the naïveté of expecting “justice” from this system in the first place. 

The ubiquitous phenomenon of American police killing Black people can be historically traced back to the very inception of policing as slave patrols in the antebellum South. Continuing through the Black Codes, Jim Crow, and the War on Drugs, American policing has always maintained a close bond with white supremacy. A ProPublica analysiseven found that young Black males in recent years were 21 times more likely to be shot and killed by the police than their white counterparts.

In fact, 64 Americans were killed by police during the trial of Derek Chauvin alone. While attention is hyper-focused on high profile cases like that of George Floyd, is it easy to forget that American police officers kill at least 1,000 people each year — a body count higher than all annual mass shooters combined. This nationwide massacre is clearly out of control and primarily encompasses an ongoing genocide against Black and Brown people that is consistent with American history more broadly. As many are reluctantly realizing, there is a good chance that this institution cannot be reformed.

While Democratic Party politicians gave disingenuous speeches exploiting the memory of George Floyd, I reflected on the fact that Floyd was killed in a blue state and in a city with a Democratic mayor. I thought about how Democratic president Joe Biden proposed increasing police funding by $300 million and sent the military to Minneapolis to further brutalize and terrorize those who dared to protest this continuous state violence against people of color. This is a systemic issue — not a partisan one. Both parties are complicit. Yet Democrats positioned themselves as the “good guys” and took credit despite upholding literally the same racist policies as Republicans.

Possibly the worst offender was House speaker Nancy Pelosi, who said that George Floyd “sacrificed” himself for the cause of justice. This was an absurd and disgusting remark — Floyd didn’t choose to be murdered. In reality, by convicting him of murder, Derek Chauvin was sacrificed to prop up an unfounded belief in justice within this inherently racist system. And this belief is indeed an extension of the American exceptionalism that is crucial to the ideological survival of this white supremacist, settler-colonial nation on the brink of collapse.

When anyone - especially an agent of “the law” - is filmed conducting a sadistic murder in broad daylight, they should be convicted every single time. The insincere gloating by the political establishment in the wake of the Chauvin verdict reveals precisely how rare anything approaching “justice” is found in the United States. We can show this empirically; between 2005 and early 2019, only 35 killer cops were convicted of a crime (a rate of far less than one percent). Based on these statistics and what we know about the profoundly corrupt culture of American policing, it is clear that the vast majority of violent crimes committed by cops go unpunished.

None of this means we shouldn’t celebrate the Chauvin verdict. We absolutely should. Seeing the Floyd family’s reaction to the news brought tears to my eyes. Although nothing can bring George Floyd back, this outcome is far better than the flagrant dismissal of justice that usually occurs in similar situations. In addition to the prospect of a fraction of justice being served, another heartening aspect of this development is the realization that activism works, that mass movements work, and — as much as the establishment doesn’t want to admit it — that property destruction works. Especially under capitalism, where human need is commodified and private property is valued more than life itself, threatening almighty property is one of the only tactics that catches the attention of the ruling class.

As Frederick Douglass famously said, “Power concedes nothing without a demand.” Without the massive protest movement (likely the largest in U.S. history) in the wake of the murder of George Floyd, that vicious thug Derek Chauvin would likely still be roaming free in the streets of Minneapolis. While we can recognize the significance of this verdict, we must also recognize that we have a long way to go to organize a multi-racial, working-class movement capable of enacting systemic change. If this is what it took to convict an obvious murderer, imagine what it will take to build the kind of society we want.

The Zimmerman Verdict and Race: A Brief Criminological Assessment

[PHOTO CREDIT: ASSOCIATED PRESS]

By Jason Michael Williams

After the verdict was read to the world that Saturday evening, I said to myself that Monday would bring a hurricane of legal responses to the case outcome specifically on the role (if any) that race played before and throughout the trial. Having said that, I also knew that none of these dialogues would involve a criminologist – someone who could contextualize the role of race beyond the scope of the law in these proceedings.

Cable stations like CNN, HLN, and MSNBC have invited on an assortment of legal experts throughout and after the trial to help with contextualizing some of the aspects of the trial, however; an issue they could not hit on in any aggressive and tangible manner was the issue of race. Why is this? Because many lawyers, by default, have a natural appreciation for the American justice system. For example, many lawyers are not aggressively conscious regarding the connection between court actors (judge, lawyer, juror, and witnesses) and hidden racisms during adjudication because to them case outcomes are based on the evidence and nothing else, thus the machinery of justice is impartial.

However, the theory that the American justice system is fair and impartial has long been debunked. Decades upon decades of social science research have shown that impartiality in the justice system is a theory at best, yet the majority of Americans continue to believe the opposite at the apparent expense of others who are every day targets of this machinery of injustice and social death.

As a criminal justice professor, one of the main aspects of the justice system that I often discuss in my courses is that it’s based on an adversarial model (e.g. may the best man win). Therefore, one can easily argue that the American justice system is not designed to get to the truth. Meanwhile, notwithstanding the logic of the said argument, many lawyers and Americans continue to advocate quite the opposite. They advocate that the American system of justice is a model for the world.

The problem with society is that it fails to include the perspective of those who are in opposition with the way in which the justice system operates. When one simplifies this conflict of perspectives it becomes clear that this split is predominantly based on race, although some may also implicate class. Sadly, this conflict reflects that the majority of the country uncritically accepts the theory that justice is fair and colorblind in spite of what social science research has historically shown. Meanwhile, those who fall prey to this machinery of injustice are blamed for their victimization as the system is constantly legitimated each time someone is convicted because most people refuse to believe the system can be unfair.

Regarding race and the Zimmerman verdict, a point missed within the race discourse is the role of the jury. Although the actions of Zimmerman are questionable if one focuses in on his language in the 911 tape, could race not have been an issue in the jury box too? Could it be that the jury saw race and included it within their assessment of the facts? Juror B-37 had engaged in an interview with CNN’s Anderson Cooper that had resulted in major social-media backlash (e.g., see, Mediaite for summary/videos). In fact, many people believed that this particular juror could easily validate prior assumptions that the mostly white jury would eventually side with Zimmerman. There were moments in her dialogue when she clearly appeared sympathetic to the defendant while having total disregard to Martin, who was unarmed and murdered.

Consider and analyze the following quotes from Mediaite, who provided a brief transcript of the interview:

Quote 1

If there was one witness who the juror didn’t find entirely credible it was Trayvon Martin ‘s friend Rachel Jeantel . “I didn’t think it was credible, but I felt sorry for her. She didn’t ask to be in this place. She wanted to go. She didn’t want to be any part of this case. I think she felt inadequate toward everyone because of her education and her communication skills. I just felt sadness for her.” She added, “She was embarrassed by being there, because of her education and her communication skills, that she just wasn’t a good witness.”

Quote 2

Cooper asked the juror specifically about Jeantel’s “creepy-ass cracker” statement that drew wide attention during the trial. She said she thought it was “probably the truth” and that “Trayvon probably said that” but said she didn’t “think it’s really racial. I think it’s just everyday life. The type of life that they live, and how they’re living, in the environment that they’re living in.”

Quote 3

In the second part of the interview, the juror told Cooper she thought Zimmerman’s “heart was in the right place” on the night he shot and killed Martin and the only thing he is guilty of is “not using good judgment [sic].” She said she thought he had “every right to carry a gun,” adding, “I think it’s everyone’s right to carry a gun.”

Quote 4

When Cooper asked if the juror thought Zimmerman “really felt his life was in danger” she responded. “I do. I really do.” When he asked if she thought Martin “threw the first punch,” she said, “I think he did.” Despite those assertions, she admitted that among she and the other jurors, “Nobody knew exactly what happened.”

Quote 1 describes the utter use of stereotypes that this juror, and possibly other jurors, had used when contextualizing Jeantel. Unfortunately, it is very possible that those stereotypes clouded this juror’s judgment regarding the validity of Jeantel’s testimony. Remember, Jeantel was a major witness to the altercation because she was the last person to speak to Martin. Nonetheless, the only thing this juror remembers regarding Jeantel’s credibility is her “bad communication skills” and “education,” nothing about the facts of the case. Clearly, this juror did not consider that Jeantel’s testimony did, in fact, match the official timeline of the event. How is that for being objective, right? Nevertheless, theoretically, jurors are not capable of this.

Quote 2 describes the juror’s quick decision to believe that Martin did, in fact, use the word “cracker.” However, what is more important about this quote is the extent to which she associates the use of this word with the everyday lives and environment of people like them (meaning Blacks). Clearly, to this juror, Blacks are foreign to her and they live radically different and decaying lifestyles in which they cannot help themselves. Also, she claimed that the use of “cracker” by Martin was not racial but is sure to paint Blacks as separate from Whites by describing how they live, thus making an implicit racial distinction between herself and Martin. Her responses here indicate that she is more likely to include these stereotypes in her assessment of the facts.

Quote 3 simply shows that at the very least this juror did believe that Zimmerman exercised poor judgment, which is also indicative regarding the value of Martin’s life to this juror. However, she did not feel that Zimmerman’s misjudgment was criminal in any way. She later shows her allegiance to the Second Amendment, which may also have racial implications because many argue that the gun debate is smothered with racial overtones. She also states that Zimmerman’s “heart was in the right place”-insensitive, much? This quote shows that somewhere within the mind of this juror she knew Zimmerman was wrong even though she admitted from the very beginning that she voted not guilty. One could easily argue that the facts did not mean much to this juror.

Quote 4 displays that this juror believed overwhelmingly that Zimmerman was not the aggressor. She believes this even though she admits that, among the jurors, nobody knew for sure what happened that night. Surprisingly, she did not give thought to the possible fact that Martin could have been defending himself against Zimmerman either. Why did this juror, and obviously others, believe that Martin was the aggressor in the face of admitted confusion about the night in question? Perhaps Martin’s skin was too dark, which made him the default aggressor.

Some people will read my assessment of the quotes and say they may be likely but not necessarily true, and they would be correct. However, they also cannot deny the qualitative significance that jurors’ mindsets can hold in case outcomes. Again, social science research continues to show that implicit biases or extra-legal factors (e.g., racial stereotypes, etc) continue to play a large role within the American justice system. It is also important to note that the above quotes are small snapshots into this juror’s mindset that could have played a role in her assessment of the facts. The full transcript is more troubling as this juror exhibits many more hints regarding her mindset and bias toward Zimmerman. It should also be noted that, at various times, the juror completely misrepresented some of the facts of the case, which makes one wonder if the facts even mattered to this juror. Furthermore, this juror is also married to a lawyer, which could have impacted her and other jurors in their deliberations. Clearly this juror is pro-Zimmerman. Therefore, it is very possible that she backed her perspective on the fact that her husband is a lawyer, which could have had an impact on how her fellow jurors saw the facts as well.

In closing, this small assessment drives so many Americans to lose faith in the justice system. Many people understand that, in a racist society, justice can never be equal. Justice is not blind so long as others (in this case jurors) continue to believe that extra-legal factors supersede the facts. It is the implicit biases held within the justice system on all levels that sustains racial disparities within the criminal justice system. This is the reality from which the outcry from the verdict derives. It derives from a system’s inability to accept the decades upon decades of social science research proving racial bias within the justice system.

Sadly, the justice system refuses to provide a contextualization of race outside the scope of the law, and this is the point from which many legal analysts draw their conclusions regarding the race question (e.g., some lawyers may say the evidence does not support that race was an issue). Some people cannot and refuse to see how the jury box can ruin a trial because, to them, the jury is theoretically impartial. Theoretically, members of the jury cannot be bias and must leave extra-legal factors out of their assessment, yet Juror B-37 shows otherwise. To many people, once the jury decides the trial is over. The justice system should be respected for working as it was designed to work and everyone should resume his or her life. At the very least, the verdict could have been manslaughter, but as some have argued in social-media, Martin may have been the wrong complexion for protection. Once again, extra-legal factors have decided a verdict. Nonetheless, more analyses on the (un)equal application of “stand your ground” laws may be helpful in debating the validity of “stand your ground.” Until a judicial revolution occurs, many will continue to ask the age-old question: will the justice system ever consider Blacks as human beings deserving of protection and justice? Remember, one cannot assess the outcome of this trail without involving the social/criminological framework that surrounds the administration of justice in America.

Originally published in the Spring/Summer 2013 edition of the Race & Justice Scholar Newsletter.

An Open Letter to My Nephews and Niece on the Day After the Trayvon Martin Verdict

[PHOTO CREDIT: MARIO TAMA/GETTY IMAGES]

By Jonathan Mathias Lassiter

Idealism is for young people. I use to believe that the world operated in a just manner. That if you worked hard against oppression, freedom would indeed ring. I must be getting older because I am no longer idealistic. I no longer believe that with enough hard work, a person, regardless of their skin color can achieve anything they wish. And now, writing this, I don’t know if I ever fully believed that. I think I just wished, prayed, and hoped it was true. It required a lot of hope to resist the truth. The truth that your grandfather told me often during my childhood. “As a Black man, you have to work twice as hard to get half as far.” As a child, I thought I knew better. I always worked hard and I was always rewarded. Teachers praised me for my academic achievement. I won awards and was recognized by adults as a “good boy.” It gave me status to be recognized by the powers that be.

But as I began to mature into a man, my eyes started to be opened. I started to realize that being praised by the powers that be is a hollow achievement-a smoke screen for the injustices perpetrated by those powers. That status only made me docile and content with the status quo. I started to realize what your grandfather was talking about. He was not just an angry Black man. He was angry; but that was not all he was. He was outraged! And justifiably so at a world that degraded him because of his black skin. My father-your grandfather-told me with much fervor, the story of his father-your great grandfather’s-discrimination and cruel treatment at the hands of white people. Your great grandfather was a sharecropper in the 1940s and 1950s Jim Crow Georgia. You are young and may not know what a sharecropper is but it is important that you do because being a sharecropper meant that your great-grandfather was relegated to the bottom of a socioeconomic system that exploited his hard work. This same thing still happens at various levels for many different people regardless of their race across the globe today. Anyway, a sharecropper was a person who leased a plot of land from the owner of the land, planted seeds, harvested the crops, and then sold those crops. After selling the crops from the harvest, the sharecropper then had to pay the landowner a percentage of the earnings to pay the bills of leasing the land and any other expenses that were related to farming. The problem with that business model was that the sharecropper was usually left with more debt than profit and remained in a perpetual cycle of poverty and thus bondage. Your great grandfather was such a man and your grandfather was born into such a cycle. One day as your great grandfather was walking down the street with your grandfather-who was a young boy at the time-a white man “much younger” than your great grandfather referred to him as a “boy.” The social climate of that time was such whereas that type of exchange was commonplace and your great grandfather had no recourse. Your great grandfather-a grown man at the time-was subjected to a dehumanizing assault to his manhood and dignity. That unfair treatment stuck with your grandfather and he carried that with him his entire life. And since being told this story as a young boy myself, it has stayed with me.

That story is testament for the lack of regard for Black life. Black skin has been deemed inferior from the first moment European eyes set upon it. It has continued to be deemed inferior with the enslavement of Africans in the Americas and the Caribbean islands. It was deemed inferior when a young woman named Mira was murdered by her slave master in 1839 North Carolina, when a young boy named Emmett Till was murdered in 1955 Mississippi, when Oscar Grant was murdered in 2009 Oakland, and in the murder of Trayvon Martin in 2012 Florida. None of these victims’ loved ones saw justice for these crimes. And there are countless unnamed victims whose lives were deemed inferior enough to take at various times throughout history and presently. However, Black life is not just deemed inferior, it is deemed dangerous. You, my nephews and my niece, are considered dangerous because you have black skin. Some consider you unintelligent, violent, and inferior. But you are none of those things. Please believe me. Please know that.

The white supremacist society we live in is not a new one. Indeed, the mentality-and it is a mentality that enslaves minds and feeds a system of injustice-that privileges whiteness is a global one. We have brothers and sisters in India and China who bleach their skin so that they may achieve or maintain fair complexions. This is a disastrous mentality to have. A mentality that teaches one to so thoroughly hate herself/himself that she/he makes physical alterations to her/his body. However, at this time, my kinfolk in India and China are not in the forefront of my brain. You are. My biggest fear is that you will believe that you are inferior, unintelligent, violent, and dangerous. I am concerned that white supremacist ideas might colonize your mind, plant poisonous seeds, and sprout strange fruit. So in the same spirit that James Baldwin wrote to his nephew in “My Dungeon Shook-Letter to my Nephew on the One Hundredth Anniversary of Emancipation,” I am writing to you, my nephews and niece. There are many people that will consider and treat you inferior but you must resist this messaging no matter how beautifully packaged it is. Many of these people will have white skin and many will be people of color like you. They will consider you inferior because of their own delusional mental schemas. Their opinions have no real bearing in reality and must be taken for what they are: false. You are not Pecola Breedlove or Bigger Thomas.

Many people that look like you will believe that they are inferior and accept negative descriptions of themselves and because they accept those descriptions of themselves they will try to force-feed them to you. Yet, you must again, resist. You come from great stock. Your biological ancestors and the Black men and women who have come before you are proof of your worth. They are outstanding, so you are outstanding! Your brilliance is right in line with George Washington Carver and Benjamin Banneker’s genius. Your artistry is in the tradition of Lorrain Hansberry, Zora Neale Hurston, and Toni Morrison. Your athletic prowess is the same as Ulysses Dove, Jesse Owens, and Wilma Rudolph. Your vision is as searing as Nat Turner, Fred Hampton, and Cornel West. Those people are the solid foundation that you must build upon.

You have a lot of which to be proud. You must be proud of yourself. If you cannot love yourself and realize your importance, no one else can. You must be proud of each and every achievement no matter how small. Even as you work towards the bigger picture, you must celebrate the little victories. You made the honor roll, celebrate! You moved onto the next grade in school, celebrate! You resisted temptation to give up even when the task was difficult, celebrate! You said no to peer pressure, celebrate! Celebrate your survival. But do not be satisfied with survival. You must thrive. However, you must know that thriving does not mean becoming Beyoncé, Brian Moynihan, or President Barack Obama. You must resist gangster activities, whether in a boardroom or street corner. You have a responsibility to struggle for equality, justice, and a fulfilling life for you and your fellow human beings. Thriving is a life lived with purpose, meaning, and integrity.

I write these things because this is the only way you will survive. You may still be gunned down by an insecure, arrogant vigilante. But your spirit, your actions will live on if they are actions carried forth from your soul. From a place of love and not fear. Fear is what makes an adult stalk and kill an unarmed boy. Fear of changes in the status quo, fear of realization of one’s own insecurities, and the possibility that she/he may indeed be the inferior one and not her/his prey. Fear is what fuels complacency. Fear of losing a house, fear of losing a job, fear of having one’s own life taken and then not avenged. Fear is a weapon of colonization that communicates to a people that “this is just the way things are.” After the Trayvon Martin verdict yesterday, I saw a lot of Black people on Facebook type: “I knew he would get off.” That statement points to a larger problem.

I, too, knew that there was a very small chance that George Zimmerman would serve any time for murdering Trayvon Martin. George Zimmerman is just one more person in America who exerted his white supremacist masculinity through violence. However, I am not satisfied with just saying, “I knew it.” The problem is that I should not know it. It should not be a given that Black lives don’t matter. But in this American society it is and has been a given. And honestly, that makes me scared. Scared for you and scared for me. But I will not just sit and pray to Jesus for “real” justice, again as I saw a lot of Black people on Facebook suggesting. Because Jesus will do nothing. That statement will be hard for some people to believe. It might be hard for you to believe. But believe it. The truth about Jesus, what made Jesus such a great prophet was not any mystical powers or divine lineage. We all are connected to the divine in some way or another. But what made Jesus so remarkable was that he did not let his fear conquer him. He knew that there was something greater than him that needed to be accomplished. He knew that his life had purpose and that purpose was to struggle for the freedom of all people, especially the most vulnerable and oppressed. Jesus was a Jewish man-not some blond haired blue-eyed Abercrombie model, don’t believe the hype-who took the side of prostitutes, people with diseases, and children. He did not care if the people in power during that time agreed with him or not. He would not stay silent. Jesus’ mind was thoroughly liberated. He knew that his power was in his voice. In speaking for those who could not speak for themselves. He knew as one of our great teachers, Audre Lorde, knew that “silence [would] not protect him” and that “when [he] dare[d] to be powerful, to use [his] strength in the service of [his] vision…it [became] less and less important whether [or not he was] afraid. That is the power of Jesus and other great prophets like Malcolm X, Toussaint Louverture, and Shirley Chisholm. So do not give into the complacency of religion. Your higher power is powerful but only as powerful as you are willing to be. You must use your voice. You must speak the truth from a decolonized mind. You must not remain docile in a system that does not value you and will seek to subjugate and/or kill you because of your black skin or any other reason.

I am trying to lead by example. I am trying to speak the truth. This letter does not feel like enough as I write it. But in a world where the dominating systems in operation are designed to stifle growth and maintain the status quo, one’s words and mind are the most powerful tools. If they remain uncolonized and free they are the instruments of creation. A person can create her/his world with her/his ideas and words. Ideas become words, and words become actions. And actions become change. There might be times where you do not know what to say: follow your heart. Listen to the voices within that come from your lived experience. Look at the world around you and know that what you see does not have to be. The status quo is not the best you can do. I am trying to be an example for you. That is why I have been away from home in graduate school for six years now. That is why I have not been able to see you grow up. I am trying to better myself so that I may speak from a place of truth and help others better themselves. I am trying to make the world a little better for you. And you must make the world a little better for others. That is hard work. It requires sacrifice, sitting with ambiguity, tolerating anxiety, failing sometimes, and the ability to move forward in a world in which the ground is constantly moving. It requires for you to be a critical thinker who does not except easy binary solutions or idealized versions of society.

So if you have not been freed from your idealism, you will soon experience such emancipation. The world we live in is a cruel and harsh teacher. This letter is written in hopes that it may inspire you and provide some type of path for you along your journey from children to adults. From complacent citizens to trailblazers for freedom. You, I, your parents, classmates, and fellow human brethren live in difficult times. My heart hurts for Trayvon Martin. I am tempted to fall into cynicism and question all my struggles for justice. But the truth is that all of our time on this earth is limited. Whether we are killed in our own neighborhoods by people who look like us with white supremacist ideas burrowed into their minds, terrorized by people with white skin, or go gently into that good night, we all have a finite amount of time to live our lives with purpose and to struggle against all odds for freedom. The struggle for freedom starts with the individual. It starts in our own minds. You must start with your mind and then spread the message of liberation to others. Once you have decolonized your mind, you will then be able to struggle for the liberation of others-whether you achieve it or not. You may not achieve all of your dreams and you might not change the world but you must continue to struggle to make your dreams your reality and to make the world a little better for your future children and nephews and nieces to live. And as your grandfather told me, you are going to have to work twice as hard to get half as far. And not just because you have black skin but because you are working against a nefarious system. But you must work twice as hard, three times as hard because at least you will have moved at all. And that movement can change a world.