Wednesday 21 April 2021

Nancy Pelosi's excruciating comment after George Floyd murder conviction

The US Speaker of the House is normally pretty deft with her public comments. But after the conviction of former police officer Derek Chauvin of the murder of George Floyd in Minneapolis Nancy Pelosi made one of the most excruciatingly ridiculous statements I have ever heard from a politician. She actually thanked the dead man for sacrificing his life for the cause of justice. Floyd was killed by a police officer who knelt with all his weight on his neck for more than nine minutes and ignored his gasping cries that he couldn't breathe. Floyd was not sacrificing his life for some greater cause. He was being slowly strangled and died as a result. The police officer was seemingly unmoved by his method of restraining the arrested man beneath his knee. So no sacrifice, Nancy Pelosi. The man was brutally murdered. So justice has been done because Chauvin has been found guilty on three counts and will probably serve the rest of his life in jail. It is true that Floyd's name will live on as a reminder of the appalling racism that exists in the US and the conviction of Chauvin is proof that justice can be done in these cases which Joe Biden said was too rare. But I fear Floyd's death will not go down in history as the moment when black Americans could start to feel safer from those white police officers who are intuitively racist and therefore open fire or use unlawful physical arresting techniques. But maybe, just maybe, no one being arrested, black or white, in the future, will lose his or her life by having a police officer kneeling on their neck.

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