[UUCP] Rev. Paul's statement Re: Darren Chauvin Trial Verdict

[revpauld444]

In a sermon in 1853, Unitarian minister and abolitionist Theodore Parker
penned these words:
“I do not pretend to understand the moral universe; the arc is a long one,
my eye reaches but little ways; I cannot calculate the curve and complete
the figure by the experience of sight; I can divine it by conscience. And
from what I see I am sure it bends towards justice.”
If those words look familiar, it’s because the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King
thought them powerful enough to paraphrase them on numerous occasions when
he said:
“[T]he arc of the moral universe is long but it bends toward justice.”
I thought of Parker’s words yesterday as I watched, along with people
around the nation and the world, the verdict being handed down in the trial
of Derek Chauvin, the former Minneapolis police officer who killed George
Floyd by kneeling on his neck for 9 minutes and 29 seconds. Mr. Chauvin was
charged with three counts of second-degree unintentional murder,
third-degree murder and second-degree manslaughter. Yesterday, a jury of
seven women and five men found him guilty on all three counts. Six of those
jurors are white, four are Black, and two identify as multiracial.
During the trial, the jury and those in the courtroom viewed, over and
over, the video recording made by then 17-year old Darnelle Frazier, a
young woman who happened to be going to the corner store with her 9-year
old cousin to buy some snacks. Seeing the commotion, she took out her cell
phone and recorded the entire incident while begging Mr. Chauvin to stop
kneeling on his neck because he couldn’t breathe and he was going to die.
That, along with her release of the video and her testimony in court, was
an act of incredible bravery, without which it is likely that the verdict
yesterday would not have been reached and Mr. Chauvin would be a free man
and possibly still a police officer.
But while we celebrate the verdict in this case, we must not allow this one
victory to lull us into a false sense of thinking that the moral arc has
once and for all bent towards justice. This verdict, while giving hope, is
not the end of the racial and social justice work that still needs to be
done in our nation and in the world. The guilty verdict of Derek Chauvin
should give us pause and lead us to consider the crimes that our nation is
still guilty of and for which we must be held accountable: the almost daily
killing by white police officers of our black brothers and sisters and of
people of color; the mass incarceration of mainly black men for the
for-profit prison system; the egregious disparity in health care between
the white population and communities of color; the woeful educational
system that favors white communities and white children over communities of
color and provides little in the way of the technology required by students
to succeed in a rapidly changing society; the lack of access to quality
mental health care including addiction resources and the continuation of
the false narrative addiction is a moral failing and a crime; the reversal
in many states of voting rights aimed primarily at black American citizens
and people of color. The list goes on. But these conditions and many others
all intersect to perpetuate the systemic racism that is our national
disgrace and our national sin.
Yes, we can be glad and celebrate that one battle has been won and some
ground gained in the struggle for racial and social justice. But we’ve seen
all too often in recent years how that ground is easily lost as racist
policies pushed by an increasingly pro-white supremacist, right wing
Republican party have foisted their agenda on the American public in the
name of making America “great again,” a code for keeping America a
predominantly white nation or at least keeping white people in control.
The moral arc will not bend towards justice any more easily now than it has
in the past without our continued dedication to helping it do so. The
struggle continues. And with patience, courage, and especially, fierce but
uncompromising love, the victory will come. As Parker wrote: we may not see
it now. Our “eye reaches but little way.” We can “divine it by conscience”
and be “sure it bends towards justice.”
Rev. Paul Dodenhoff

-- 
Rev. Paul S. Dodenhoff
Unitarian Universalist Congregation of the Palisades
Englewood, NJ 07631
uucpalisades.org
revpauld444 at gmail.com
551-427-2648


*The freedom to doubt, to question, to be content to live in Mystery is
central to the liberal religious tradition. Like the process of evolution
itself, the path that we follow, our practice if you will, is not easy or
simple. It isn’t without its dead ends or its disappointments. It doesn’t
guarantee that all of our conclusions will be final or that we will ever
find an answer to all of our questions. But also like the process of
evolution, it is filled with great expressions of beauty and awe that are
sometimes born of great struggle and at other times come as unexpected
Grace. *
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