A BRIEF STATEMENT
I really didn’t want to dive into the Chauvin trial, but I went on Brian Williams last night to talk about it. Watch it on my Instagram, Twitter or MSNBC’s YouTube. Read here:
BRIAN WILLIAMS
It is the endless string of humanity, regular people who could be in any of our lives on the stand speaking English and using emotion, from a nine-year-old girl to a 69-year-old man. Talk about the humanity of this case which is built around the humanity we saw drain from a man in the street.
BARATUNDE
For the past year I've had to build up a psychic wall around myself to survive, and I have been avoiding this trial all week because I wasn't ready to be re-traumatized by Memorial Day 2020. The way you just phrased that has brought a lot of that back to the surface.
And I think what's remarkable is when you see the range of that humanity all week on display of, sorry, an off-duty firefighter, a jujitsu expert who just happened to be walking by, a store employee, a would-be customer, a passer-by noticing something is up, and all these people trying to intervene, trying to preserve the humanity of a fellow citizen and being thwarted. And to hear them this week, not just what they experienced but what they felt after.
They all felt guilty for not saving George Floyd's life. They felt responsible for his death. Everybody seems to have felt responsible for George Floyd's death except the one person who's responsible for George Floyd's death, Derek Chauvin and the police officers who let him do what he did. So I am in awe of the humanity and I'm in pain over the lack of it displayed by those who are entrusted with our own safety.
