The Guilty Verdict Won’t Bring George Floyd Back To His Little Girl

But it gives the world some hope

Rebecca Stevens
Curated Newsletters

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Source: Instagram — Gianna Floyd

I was going to stay awake for as long as it took yesterday. I needed to hear the Derek Chauvin verdict before going to bed here in Europe. And from what I hear, I wasn’t the only one who was willing to sacrifice a night’s rest to listen to what Chauvin’s fate would be. Friends and colleagues were up too. This was a moment I had waited for forever since that fateful day in May last year when George Floyd brutally lost his life right in front of the cameras for the whole world to see.

Over the course of this Covid 19, lockdown-ridden year, I have often found myself praying for justice for George Floyd, but I was afraid to even hope for a guilty verdict. I had been disappointed so many times before, the last time was upon hearing the non-guilty verdict for the cop that killed Breonna Taylor — and each time, it took me a few weeks to mentally recover. For the Chauvin trial, I refused to hope, I had pushed the possibility of a guilty verdict to the farthest corners of my mind.

All throughout the trial, I was bracing myself for disappointment, I kept rehearsing my coping strategies over and over, I was anxious. Yesterday, I bravely switched on the television to meet this important and symbolic moment in American history. Upon…

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Rebecca Stevens
Curated Newsletters

I write about racism, but there are so many other things I would like to write about instead. Help me dismantle racism so that I can get to that.