 | By Ezekiel Kweku Politics Editor, Opinion |
Yesterday afternoon, a jury found Derek Chauvin, a former police officer, guilty of second-degree murder, third-degree murder and second-degree manslaughter in the death of George Floyd. Esau McCaulley, who teaches the New Testament at Wheaton College, Ill., wrote movingly about his struggle to explain the relationship between Black people and his country to his children during the trial.
|
In McCaulley's telling, the challenge is to chart a path between the fatalism of "Black pessimism" and the complacency of "Black pietism": a "deep act of faith," he writes, which is founded in the "idea that a just God governs the universe, and for that reason, none of our efforts are in vain." |
The damage done to Floyd is permanent, and can't be reversed by a court. "Juries can't raise the dead," McCaulley writes, though the verdict may bring Floyd's family some peace. Just as permanent is McCaulley's son's new understanding of the world, wrought by the trial, an understanding that "eventually comes for all Black boys and girls." |
The case of Second Lt. Caron Nazario, a Black man who, after a routine traffic stop, was held at gunpoint, pepper-sprayed and handcuffed, felt like another brutal dramatization of the disjunction that McCaulley tried to explain to his children, between being Black and being American. I was struck, too, by the symbolism of someone who has sworn to protect this country being brutalized by someone who has sworn to serve its residents. |
In an Op-Ed this week, Theodore R. Johnson, a Black retired Navy commander who now works at the Brennan Center for Justice, writes about what happened to Nazario and explains how military service highlights the tension between what America promises Black people and what it actually guarantees them. |
"For longer than there's been a United States, two things have been true," Johnson writes. "Black Americans have served in all their country's wars, and racism has prevented them from tasting the fullness of the very freedom many of them died fighting for." In Johnson's view, Black military service is "a means of making a direct claim on all the rights and privileges of being an American by taking on one of its important responsibilities," but even this form of "superlative citizenship" is not enough to protect Black people. |
Here's what we're focusing on today: |
Forward this newsletter to friends to share ideas and perspectives that will help inform their lives. They can sign up here. Do you have feedback? Email us at opiniontoday@nytimes.com |
Contact Us
If you have questions about your Times account, delivery problems or other issues, visit our Help Page or contact The Times. |
|
No comments:
Post a Comment