changed

i was on the phone with a friend that day, talking about wi-fi speeds and the sea of cables that run beneath our feet. it was april 20, 2021, and i was getting advice to upgrade my internet from copper to fiber. it's time, he joked, to catch up with the times. that's when, walking into the living room with the phone still hugging my ear, i saw the verdict in the trial of derek chauvin live on national television: guilty.

it's a strange thing, i admit, to celebrate a conviction, perhaps because it almost always follows some kind of tragedy. some kind of loss. some kind of injustice. in this case a man's life was cut short. george floyd's life. squeezed out of him under the knee of a police officer who once took an oath to protect him. it was murder in broad daylight on the streets of america. in the midst of people walking by, officers looking on, and nervous hands holding cellphone cameras, one that happened to belong to a teenage girl whose ten-minute video would go on to spark riots, marches, and solidarity protests across the world on a scale rarely ever seen.

our republic is not perfect—history has never seen a saintly state—but this particular april afternoon joins the calendar of days that has recored egregious wrongs turning right, painful and hard-fought turns that steer the direction of justice ever more toward accountability. a single verdict, of course, is no panacea for the ills that afflict race relations and law enforcement in america. jurors and judges dispense justice—and occasionally injustice—inside well-guarded buildings every day, and it's true too that many cops strive to serve and protect the public, but while this verdict was right, supported by the facts, and a welcome rebuke of police brutality, the courts cannot litigate love and hate—those forces within us that drive us to commit acts of humanity and acts of violence.

until we convict our own biases as guilty, as racial, as wrong, until we widen the lens to confront the mental health and socio-economic factors that play a role in police violence, we will see this movie again and again—and more people, like george floyd, like angel hernandez, like tony timpa—will continue to be denied the rights to life and liberty they deserve. this verdict is a step forward in our legal system, in our democracy, but in our policies, in our hearts, what has changed?