Yesterday, a white man was convicted of the murder of a black man. The white man was a police officer. The black man was a drug user and had "a history." Read between the lines there. There is nothing I can say that will further the ongoing conversations over Chauvin's conviction, Police brutality or Floyd's death. Millions of voices have flooded the arena and so I won't try in pretending I have something new to say.
What I am feeling though, what I know needs to be put to words is this: I cannot celebrate a man's incarceration. Just as I did not celebrate a man's death, there is nothing celebratory in this verdict. I hang my head in sadness knowing that it came to this. I hang my head in sadness thinking of a man being suffocated to death in a knee-to-neck choke hold. Though we want justice, though I know we must see consequences for the choices people make, how is it that society celebrates the fall of any man or woman? How do we stand at the entrance of the palace a scream "Give us Barabbas" or cry "Crucify him, crucify him?" What is it in our human nature that loves to celebrate the fall and degeneration of a man? Does this feed our inner ego, the one that says if I can point the finger at your brokenness then I am better than you? Or, at least I didn't do what you did, so I am still okay.
I have no answers to give, only questions. Yet, I believe this all ties into dignity, somehow. Within my own dignity, I cannot lower or raise a man up, I can only see him for who he is and respond to the pain he has inflicted or has received. For myself, there is no space for celebration in that. Today I am grieving for the Floyd family, as I have done for the last year. I also grieve for Chauvin. I cannot imagine losing my loved one to death, or a lifetime of incarceration. Though one is agreed upon by a jury of peers as the fair decision, neither outcome lifts the spirits or heals the sadness.
I wonder if society would ever be able to be sad within the fair decision? I wonder if we can ever feel the depths of the loss in both the life and the guilty verdict? Why does justice, or the distribution of it, come with celebration? Relief, I get that; It should relieve us to know that justice is being done. That right and wrong are being monitored and that we are not totally lawless is crucial to the overall scheme of things. But celebration?
No, that just doesn't feel right. It doesn't feel... justified.