In the end, it was the man’s humanity that mattered.
The trial of former Minneapolis police officer Derek Chauvin for the killing of George Floyd had become one of those symbolic moments in American history.
The desperate minutes captured by police body cameras and bystanders’ cell phones could have served as an encapsulation of much of the tragedy of American history.
A Black man, supine, hands cuffed behind his back, calls out for both mercy and his mother as the breath is choked from his body.
A white man, clothed with both the tokens and the equipment of authority and legitimacy, kneels upon the neck of the Black man, oblivious to — and maybe even uncaring about — the suffering and misery brought about by his unrelenting weight and force.
A crowd of horrified bystanders witness and record the events as the minutes of misery and dread unfold, their rage, fear and frustration mounting with every passing moment.
If that’s not an efficient summary of America’s misbegotten narrative of race, ruin and regret, I don’t know what is.
Chauvin’s conviction on all three charges of murder and manslaughter shouldn’t have come as a surprise. He was caught on camera choking for more than nine minutes a helpless man while the man said, again and again, he couldn’t breathe.
But somehow his conviction did come as a surprise.
That’s because we Americans, both Black and white, have become inured, even jaded, about whether simple standards of justice, decency and even humanity apply when race becomes part of the discussion.
Often — far, far too often — we cannot see each other for what we are, fellow members of the same flawed species.
Human beings.
The trial served as a reminder of that shared condition.
The prosecution was relentless, methodically stacking pieces of evidence of Chauvin’s disregard for both proper police procedure and the anguish of the fellow human being dying beneath his knee as if they were bricks forming a tall, impregnable wall. The prosecutors showed just how many chances to avert disaster Chauvin ignored — how many appeals to save a life he waved away.
The defense, unable to challenge those facts in any meaningful way, took another course. The defense attorneys tried to demonstrate that George Floyd, through his drug use and criminal past, somehow had caused his own death.
That argument did not have the effect the defense hoped it would.
The alt right brayed before and after the verdict about the “evil” of “canonizing” Floyd, whom they called a “career criminal” — inflating and fictionalizing Floyd’s real criminal record in the process while at the same time ignoring Chauvin’s longer record of transgressions.
But, as usual, the alt-righters missed the point.
No one, not even Floyd’s family, saw the dead man as a saint.
Instead, what most of us saw was someone we knew.
There are precious few Americans who do not know a George Floyd, a friend, family member or other loved one who has battled addiction, made poor choices and struggled to find his or her way in a hard and often confusing world. We all have known prodigal sons and daughters, lost sheep we hope one day will find their way home.
Because we love them.
And the thought that our loved one might meet his or her end lying on the concrete, hands cuffed behind the back, gasping out cries for help and a mother’s love while a stranger slowly squeezes breath and life away fills us with feelings deeper and more profound than anger.
The rejoicing that followed Chauvin’s conviction didn’t come because Americans saw Floyd as a saint.
It came because we saw him — we see him — as a son, a father, a brother, an uncle and a friend.
One of us.
A fellow human being.
In the aftermath of the convictions, many people talked about the trial being a victory for justice.
It was that, but it also was something else — a recognition.
A recognition that whatever else George Floyd may have been — a Black man, a drug user, a guy with a criminal record — he also was a human being.
In the end, it was the man’s humanity that mattered.
John Krull is director of Franklin College’s Pulliam School of Journalism and publisher of TheStatehouseFile.com, a news website powered by Franklin College journalism students. Send comments to editorial@therepublic.com.
