Accountability, Healing & Justice
April 23, 2021
“Justice lives in the bones.”
Black Lives Matter.
We exhaled with relief when the verdict was read: guilty. Even though we already knew Derek Chauvin was guilty of murder - we all bore witness to this heinous state violence thanks to the bravery of Darnella Frazier. Tuesday’s guilty verdict represents a minimum level of accountability. It was necessary progress, but not justice.
And just as we exhaled, 16 year old Ma'Khia Bryant was shot and killed by a Columbus police officer after she called the police for assistance in an altercation. We can expect and demand a higher level of accountability than perhaps even days ago. But we won’t see justice from the latest wave of excuses, resignations, and denouncements. Ma'Khia would be alive if not for systemic injustice.
Facing History & Ourselves shared a Teaching Idea on Accountability, Justice, and Healing after Derek Chauvin’s Trial. They suggest exploring these definitions of justice, accountability, and healing:
Justice (n.): The moral responsibility to do what is right
Heal (v.): become sound or healthy again; alleviate (a person's distress or anguish); correct or put right (an undesirable situation)
Accountable (adj): To be held responsible
We may find relief in accountability, solace in healing, but we must hold an unwavering commitment toward justice. Bernice King tweeted yesterday that she is “...thankful for accountability. The work continues. Justice is a continuum. And America must bend with the moral arc of the universe, which bends toward justice.”
The dynamics of our society, a racialized caste system, mean that Black, Indigenous, Brown, and all People of Color are consciously and tacitly considered less human, less worthy of care, safety, innocence and protection than White people. While most of us reading this would adamantly disagree with this assertion, our society has nonetheless been organized and designed around this premise. White supremacy ideology is baked into every institution and shapes our earliest conceptions of ourselves and the world around us.
Let's uproot and dismantle the beliefs, practices, and policies that directly or inadvertently reinforce or reproduce systemic racism. We can co-create and live by a new set of rules in which every person is in what john powell calls the ‘circle of human concern’: creating a world together in which every person is inherently deserving of care, protection, and respect. Until we do, more people will die prematurely due to racism and we will all suffer the consequences of a society divided.
Please consider donating to the following organizations:
Black Lives Matter.
“Changing everything might sound daunting, but it also means there are many places to start, infinite opportunities to collaborate, and endless imaginative interventions and experiments to create. ”
"I would not call today’s verdict “justice”, however, because justice implies true restoration. But it is accountability, which is the first step towards justice. And now the cause of justice is in your hands. And when I say your hands, I mean the hands of the people of the United States.
George Floyd mattered. He was loved by his family and his friends. His death shocked the conscience of our community, our country, the whole world. He was loved by his family and friends – but that isn’t why he mattered. He mattered because he was a human being. And there is no way we could turn away from that reality."
- Keith Ellison, Minnesota Attorney General, April 20, 2021