Black lives do matter

A jury in Minneapolis, Minnesota, ruled that black lives do matter. The court was hearing the case of Derek Chauvin, the policeman who killed a black man while arresting him last year. Chauvin was convicted on three counts, the highest of which was second-degree murder. Floyd's death and other high-profile killings of black men by police in recent years led to massive protests in the US last year, even spreading to Canada and Europe, where minorities have also suffered decades of discrimination and police violence. However, while some Americans will see the verdict as a sign of progress, many know there is a long road ahead.

"It was a murder in full light of day, and it ripped the blinders off for the whole world to see," President Joe Biden said of the incident where Chauvin knelt on the handcuffed Floyd's neck for nine minutes, most of which was captured on video by bystanders. "For so many, it feels like it took all of that for the judicial system to deliver just basic accountability," Biden said, referring to the fact that it took such indisputable evidence to convict the killer cop. Vice President Kamala Harris, meanwhile, noted that "because of smartphones, so many Americans have now seen the racial injustice that black Americans have known for generations."

While true, this is also a reminder that most cases of police violence do not take place in broad daylight with dozens of camera angles available. We have no assurance that justice will be done in any of them. This one verdict does not solve the bigger problem, but at least it gets the ball rolling. It is a reminder that police and judicial reforms are needed not tomorrow, not today, but yesterday. The fight against racism and bigotry must continue. Far too many people still believe that black people are not mistreated by the police, or even that they are predisposed to crime. These people are racists. There are no ifs and buts about it. And it is not just black people. Anti-Asian, anti-South Asian, and antisemitic violence is also still common.

The previous US president was elected on a platform of outright bigotry, governed as one, and appointed racists to high office. It will take decades of education to fix what is broken. But at least now, there is proof that it can be fixed.