“What He Had Been Trained
to Do”
This week, we witnessed the opening days of
the trial of Derek Chauvin, and I’ve been asking myself: what does it mean to
work for justice in the shadow of the United States’ history of police
violence, White supremacy, and systemic injustice? We have felt anew our grief
and outrage for the murder of George Floyd, even while we are reminded again
that we live in a society where many people refuse to concede that a person in
authority can abuse power. They refuse to agree that all people, including law
enforcement officers, should be responsible for their actions. In their minds,
all police violence is justified, especially if the officer felt fear for their
life – and especially, to put it plainly, if the victim of police violence is
not White, and especially if the victim of police violence is Black or
Indigenous.