Derek Chauvin's conviction is not a moment of 'racial progress'

For Gregory*, a 61-year old Black man from Baltimore, the weight of the evidence against Chauvin and the nine-minute and 30 second video that clearly indicted him, was stacked against a backdrop of American history that vindicates policemen - particularly white policemen who have killed Black men (and women). "It didn't matter what we saw, I had that bad feeling. That same old bad feeling that he would be found innocent," the father of two shared with me in the days leading up to the verdict.

Much of America, particularly Black America, felt and feared the same. Gregory's position is hardly irrational, rather, rooted in statistical evidence that reveals the sheer rarity of police officer convictions. Philip Stinson of Bowling Green University found that, since 2005, only seven police officers have been convicted of murder after fatally shooting a victim.

Jury convictions of police charged with homicide over that span are about one in 2,000, suggesting that the Chauvin trial - for Gregory and Black Americans conscious of this pattern - would likely render the same unjust result.

What if Darnella Frazier, the Black teen who recorded all nine minutes and 30 seconds of the episode, had chosen to step away and not take out her camera phone?

But this time, it didn't.

On April 21, the Minneapolis court found Chauvin guilty on all three charges - second and third degree murder, and second degree manslaughter. Prosecutors requested the maximum prison time of 40 years attached to the conviction, and Chauvin will return to court to face sentencing in roughly two months' time.

His conviction has been lauded as a "step forward" and a "landmark moment" by many who jockeyed to put a positive cap on a case that served as a symbol for rising racism, police violence, and their furious overlaps.

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To a nation ravaged by four years of Trump, a pandemic shifting in an unknown direction, and a streak of police shootings that have claimed the lives of unarmed Black men and women, young boys and girls, Chauvin's conviction was once again proffered as a symbol of "racial progress".

But close scrutiny of the peculiar dimensions of this case - and its conclusion - reveal that it is anything but. What if Darnella Frazier, the Black teen who recorded all nine minutes and 30 seconds of the episode, had chosen to step away and not take out her camera phone? She didn't, and her courageous decision spurred on a series of episodes - particular to this case - which delivered that rare conviction on Wednesday.

Read more: Remember, it's Derek Chauvin who is on trial - not George Floyd

The video illustrated Chauvin's disregard for Floyd's life, lucidly and luridly. When it emerged, protests exploded in every major American city, with actions also held in cities beyond the United States, marking the biggest movement since the first wave of Black Lives Matter actions.

How might things have looked different, if these protests had fizzled out quickly, and in turn, failed to accelerate the mainstream championing of "Black Lives Matter" by corporations, on NBA courts, and other spheres of American life that had rebuffed that motto and mission?