Daily Verse | 2 Kings 21:9
But the people did not listen. Manasseh led them astray, so that they did more evil than the nations the Lord had destroyed before the Israelites.
Mid-week and the big story is that former Minneapolis police officer Derek Chauvin was found guilty yesterday on all charges against him. Chauvin had been charged with second-degree unintentional murder, third-degree murder and second-degree manslaughter. The jury delivered its verdict after 10 hours of deliberations over two days.
I didn’t listen to any of the trial, so any information I have about it is second- or third-hand news reports or commentary, just like the vast majority of Americans. I also don’t know the technical ins and outs of the legal differences between second-degree unintentional murder and third-degree murder and second-degree manslaughter, although on the surface it seems understandable. So I don’t have much of a leg to stand on to dispute the jury’s findings.
But I do know this: Derek Chauvin wasn’t on trial for murder. He was on trial for being a racist.
Oh, technically he was standing trial for murdering George Floyd, but that’s not why the story stayed in the public eye for the last year. The reason we know about George Floyd and Derek Chauvin is because Chauvin is white and Floyd is black. The reason we know about George Floyd and Derek Chauvin is because Floyd’s death ignited violent protests involving Black Lives Matter, Inc., in multiple cities across the nation that caused billions of dollars in damage and killed 19 people. The reason we know about George Floyd and Derek Chauvin is because of claims that police are racist and that “America has its knee on people of color.”
George Floyd’s death and alleged racist motivations have been inextricably conflated together. The story is that George Floyd was murdered because he was black.
George Floyd’s death was claimed to be murder and the murder was claimed to be driven by racism. The Left wouldn’t separate the two then and won’t separate the two now. After the verdict was announced, Black Lives Matter, Inc., wrote, “But let’s be clear — This verdict does not change what we know all too well: White supremacy still exists.” Resident Biden stayed awake long enough to say, “[Floyd’s murder] ripped the blinders off for the whole world to see the systemic racism. Systemic racism — a stain on our nation’s soul.” Jesse Jackson, race monger extraordinaire said, “The killing continues. We must break the backbone of legal lynching forever. Police killing people is getting away with legal lynching.”
In the minds of the progressive Left, then, a guilty verdict for murder in this case means Chauvin is guilty of racism.
But racist motivations were not proven in court. The prosecution didn’t provide evidence for racism and the defense didn’t provide evidence disproving racism. Racism can’t be proven in this case unless Derek Chauvin confesses that he kneeled on George Floyd’s neck because he hates black men and wanted to kill Floyd.
Forgive and act; deal with everyone according to all they do, since you know their hearts (for you alone know every human heart).
1 Kings 8:39;
Racism is an attitude, a deformity of character, a worldview, a matter of the heart. It shows up in words and actions and nothing Derek Chauvin did the day George Floyd died suggests that he was provoked by Floyd’s race to murder him. There is simply no evidence for it. All of the officers involved were patient and non-aggressive as Floyd resisted arrest for more than eight minutes and claimed to be claustrophobic and refused to comply with commands to get in the squad car.
Derek Chauvin couldn’t get a fair trial because the case was poisoned by accusations of racism from the start and then reinforced by violence and political clowns like Mad Maxine Waters demanding a guilty verdict. The only appropriate considerations should have been the evidence for and against his responsibility for Floyd’s death.
Rightly or wrongly, the jury decided that Chauvin was responsible for Floyd’s death. Perhaps he was. But we don’t know, and can’t know, whether Chauvin was motivated by racism. Only God knows that.
Undeterred, however, the Left let us know that racist policing was being decided in this case. And on that, unfortunately for them (and for us), the jury is still out.
