Dear Editor,
An immense feeling of joy overcame me when I heard the verdict pronounced in the trial of Derek Chauvin, the white American policeman who had knelt on the neck of the black American George Floyd, and died during the execution of the act. The verdict indicated that Floyd’s death was as the result of Chauvin continuing to exert excessive force on Floyd and causing asphyxiation. As a human being, I briefly debated the humaneness of my elation at a man’s freedom and probably his life being taken away but almost immediately, the evidence against Chauvin and the decades of brutality by white police against black citizens, returned to my mind and dispelled any compassion that had risen in me. This was one of those cases and trials which reverberated across the world. It is reminiscent of the O.J. Simpson trial in the United States of America (U.S.A) in the 1990s in its savagery and the colossal revelation of racial tensions in the country.
The system of justice in the U.S.A has prevailed despite a few ruptures. Even a member of Congress, Senator Maxine Walters, called for confrontation if the Judicial Branch of the government failed to produce justice in the trial. She was moved emotionally to infringe on the territory of a coequal Branch of government, which was going against the design of the Constitution of the U.S.A. Americans’ emotions were running high as they awaited the verdict and it was possible that the outcome prevented riots throughout the U.S.A, unlike any that would have come before. We, in Guyana and most likely citizens throughout the world, tend to identify with the U.S.A and support the country because of the ability of their justice system to enact and enforce timely and worthwhile laws, our relatives and friends reside there and the blending of our two cultures. We can only hope that the U.S.A’s system of justice will be emulated by Guyana. My faith along with that of countless people around the world in the U.S.A’s system of justice, has been restored. Let us hope that the events associated with the death of George Floyd herald an exponential improvement in race relations in America.
Sincerely,
Conrad Barrow
