![]() Derek Chauvin was convicted of second degree murder and is currently serving out a sentence in a federal penitentiary in Arizona. And it took absolutely every lesson he’d earned about the law, about politics, about racial justice to get it done. ![]() Also, a five term congressman and the first ever Muslim-American elected to that body, he was ready for the political firestorm he was stepping into too. He’d been working against police violence his entire career. After the murder of George Floyd, the responsibility to hold his murderers accountable fell on the shoulders of Minnesota’s attorney general, Keith Ellison. But our guest today didn’t forget either. We’ve watched everything from book bans on books like How to Be an Anti-Racist and attacks on Black studies programs, including a ban against the AP course in African-American history in the entire state of Florida. Donald Trump is the frontrunner for the Republican nomination for president after all. But you know who didn’t forget? The white supremacists. All of us, we’re talking about other things. Those politicians, passing the same discriminatory policies. Those DEI coordinators, so many of them, have either been marginalized into just a symbol or were fired completely. Three years on, it’s hard to fully identify the tangible impact of that moment. Hiring DEI coordinators, the same politicians whose policies created untenable poverty for predominantly Black communities now stood in quote, “solidarity.” Social media went all black. The same corporations who discriminate against Black employees, Black shoppers, or Black communities now commercialized the Black fist. But it did force so many people who could have otherwise ignored the reality that Black folks have lived every day to for just a moment, stop and pay attention. That didn’t stop the then president, a man who came to power by driving white supremacy to the fore in our public debate, from using the movement as a means to stoke the very flames that had created the situation where thousands of Black folks have to live with the indignity of violence at the hands of people sworn to protect them. The Black Lives Matter movement took on a new life, as by some estimates, literally 10% of Americans, 35 million people took part in a Black Lives Matter demonstration. I remember watching as throngs of people took to the streets in a nationwide show of indignation. The dissonance and knowing that these men had sworn to quote, “protect and serve,” but rather than seeing George Floyd as someone who they were to protect and serve, they saw him as someone from whom they were supposed to protect other people. ![]() The anger at the inhumanity that Derek Chauvin and the three other officers showed as Floyd called for his mama between gasps. The rage at knowing that had George Floyd not been Black and poor, he would never have had to suffer that. I remember the gush of competing emotions, the sadness at the loss of an innocent life. It was the first two months of the pandemic. Do you remember where you were when you saw that horrific video that felt like it would never end? The one of a man choking the life out of another man with his knee on his neck? I’ll never forget the video that showed the world the brutal death of George Floyd. Across the U.S., drug shortages are near an all time high. The World Meteorological Organization says that heat waves will climb to record highs in the next five years. Abdul El-Sayed, narrating: A debt ceiling crisis looms with foundational implications for health. Then he sits down with Minnesota Attorney General Keith Ellison, the man responsible for bringing Floyd’s murderers to justice and author of a new book about the trial and police violence.ĭr. Abdul reflects on the legacy of that uprising two years on. The murder of George Floyd three years ago set off an uprising at the very core of who we are as a country over the treatment of Black folks, particularly at the hands of the police.
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