Chauvin trial: an American milestone?

By Pete North - April 21, 2021

George Floyd was a man of poor character and his death was no great loss to humanity. During an arrest he was restrained in such a way that his drug addled body could not withstand it. But all the same, there is a case to answer. At the very least it looked like manslaughter, but could, considering the motives of the arresting officer, fall within the scope of murder. An American jury decided that it did.

Hitherto now I had not watched the footage. My interest in the matter was the political fallout as British people adopted Floyd as the rallying banner for their own axe grinding. I think it was in poor taste, wholly opportunistic and feeble excuse for the wanton thuggery. It smacks of the me-tooism of British leftists who wish they were oppressed and want a slice of the victimhood pie.

But all the same the case will continue to be relevant, both to US politics, which is of interest, and our own politics. So I watched the footage. To my eyes Derek Chauvin applied excessive force, with a certain casual contempt. Irrespective of whether Mr Floyd was resisting arrest, and his medical fitness, the charge of unintentional second degree murder looks right.

Whether the subsequent charges were necessary is a matter for the American legal system. One suspects they had Chauvin up on all charges to ensure at least something stuck. Had Chauvin walked from this trial, Americans, and black Americans especially, would have good reason to question whether justice had been done.

One would hope that the conviction will go some way toward putting a line under this who sordid episode. But it probably won’t. It’s too politically useful for all sides. And it is highly likely this is not the end of the matter. Like it or not, there are questions about the conduct of the trial and the political exploitation of this case could be the very thing that collapses it on appeal.

The larger issue here is whether Chauvin’s actions are indicative of all police in America in respect of their treatment of blacks. We cannot casually discount that possibility. It is wholly possible that a career of dealing with lowlifes such as Floyd on a daily basis, would create a jaded culture of contempt where black criminals are seen as less than human. A job so routine and futile that only a thug would even apply to do it.

That then raises bigger philosophical questions about the nature of crime and policing, born of a particular social and historical context. One might very well ask if America is “systemically racist”. We don’t have to go back many decades to a time when it categorically was. How much of that residual mentality persists?

As it happens, I do think a form of segregation still exists in the USA. It is not enforced in the same way, and is perpetuated by race activist agitators and welfarists, and is reinforced by identity politics and the politics of victimhood. Much of it is endemic to American culture, and the clue is the way in which recent black immigrants do not fall into the same trap as the descendants of American slaves.

We are not then looking at systemic racism, rather we are looking at the miserable legacy of slavery – and to a point the same forces that have ravaged the white working classes of America, so wonderfully illustrated by David Simon’s The Wire.

There are answers to this. There is a way out. But it’s going to take time, and it’s going to require open and frank debate and it will require black Americans to turn their backs on the opportunistic race grifters who have contributed to their predicament. Equality will come through self-realisation.

The precise nature of the solutions is one for America to decide, but I can say with absolute certainty that renaming streets, pulling down statues, defunding police forces and adopting identity politics will do nothing whatsoever for the prospects of black people. Critical race theory will not save a single black life or lift anyone out of poverty, save for the BLM leaders (the new televangelists) who make off with the millions.

Derek Chauvin will pay for his crime – as well he should, and America will rightly reflect, but it is clear that there are forces at work who are cynically exploiting the murder of George Floyd for their own political ends, who have no interest whatsoever in ending divisions, and can only succeed by perpetuating them. It is those people more than anyone who keep Black America is a state of social and economic segregation, and they will only be equal and free when they realise who’s really doing the exploiting.