Statements From Our Board of Directors Regarding The Derek Chauvin Verdict
Message from Rev. Molly Carlson, IL Conference Minister (UCC):
The verdict is in.
I am waiting and watching along with colleagues from Community Renewal Society. A gathering/rally is planned in Chicago tonight. Tensions are high and the pain is palpable.
This comes on the heels of the news of the tragic deaths of Daunte Wright and Adam Toledo. Say their names.
The verdict – comes live: Guilty. Guilty. Guilty.
I am surprised by my tears – more like sobs, actually. And the people with whom I watch this news cannot contain their reactions any more than I. I have such an overwhelming feeling of justice. Followed immediately by a sense of fear about the response we will likely experience in our communities.
This verdict feels vindicating of so many black lives lost at the hands of a broken policing system. There is a tiny glimmer of hope. While I have compassion for Office Chauvin as he is a product of a much broader system that continues to create the context that makes such actions possible, this does not balance out the decades and centuries of violence against Black lives and bodies.
As we lean into the days and weeks and months ahead – we know there is so much work to do – to work for justice, accountability, and the reformation of systems that are holding our world hostage. We pray and cry and lament the lives that have been lost. We pray for the Black and Brown lives that live in fear every day. We pray for God’s healing on this broken and hurting world.
May we each be empowered by God’s hands and feet and voice working for a just world for all.
Message from Jia Johnson, Project Director at McCormick Theological Seminary:
Today's verdict in the Derek Chauvin trial is certainly a legal victory within our current criminal legal system.
Today, we breathe a little easier.
Today, we cry tears of both mourning and relief.
Today, we thank God for gifting us community organizers, advocates, community healers, civic and faith leaders whose commitments and co-laboring bent the arch of the moral universe towards justice.
Today, we keep co-laboring towards a co-creating a more just and equitable world so that there is NEVER another senseless death like #GeorgeFloyd, #DaunteWright, #AdamToledo, #MaKhiaBryant (who was shot and killed by police while the world was receiving today's verdict), and the countless others.
Sending light, love and warmth to George Floyd's family. Rest in Power, George.
#TheFightContinues
Message from Daryle Brown, Executive Director of Multi-Media Communications at Trinity United Church of Christ:
Fighters for justice around the world sighed with relief as the guilty verdicts were read in the trial held for the murder of George Floyd. I was certainly among them, crying softly as I watched my television. The tension that had been growing, the tightness in my chest, uncomfortable, even if not life threatening, finally easing.
Almost immediately following the verdicts, government officials across the nation began to proclaim “justice is served.”
Unfortunately, we must remind ourselves that it took millions of people in cities near and far, literally all around the world, standing up in protest of this cold-blooded murder captured on video, to force the state to charge and then convict the murderer.
The reality is that justice was not “served.” No. Instead, guilty verdicts were pulled out of a criminal system with heavy labor pains as we were forced to relive every aspect of the murder over and over – never sure that our witness to this murder recorded live on video would be enough to convict a police officer. This is not what justice looks like.
While I’m sure many were relieved with the verdicts, my strong suspicion is that many of the politicians and pundits were more relieved that the possibility of property being torn asunder by protesters in a release of justified rage was now diminished.
But justice served? No.
Justice served would’ve been the other three police officers on the scene of an “attempted” murder, interjecting themselves into the situation, and George Floyd still being alive and with his family.
Barring that, “justice served” will occur when our police departments are “right-sized” (using that corporate term for those with an aversion to the phrase “Defund the Police”), as we shift funds from weaponized security to humanized community safety. Justice served requires cities, counties, and states around the nation to prioritize budgets on restoring people, not policing them.
As our tension is released with these convictions, it is ok to take a moment to catch your breath.
But, as your respiration normalizes, as your pulse calms, remember God’s call for justice expressed in Amos 5:24 (The Message), “Do you know what I want? I want justice - oceans of it. I want fairness - rivers of it. That's what I want. That's all I want.”
That’s all God wants. That’s all we will accept.
A luta continua.