Healing After Chauvin Murder Conviction: Is It Possible?

Racial trauma therapist Resmaa Menakem was featured on NPR’s Here and Now. He discusses the impact of the murder of George Floyd on communities of color, the Chauvin guilty verdict, and how heal moving forward.

“He says the Chauvin verdict — guilty of second-degree murder, third-degree murder and second-degree manslaughter — is not justice, but rather accountability. It took uninterrupted, uncut video evidence to prove what people of color have been saying for decades about the police, he says.”

I ache for my former students, for my friends, my community, and the trauma people of color face on a daily basis. I am angry. I am motivated.

I am moved by this call to action for white people:

“[White people’s] lives have not depended on them understanding and having any agility with race as a collective,” he says. “One of the ways that I think we have to begin to heal is that white bodies actually take this idea of racialization and white body supremacy seriously within their own groups, cultures and families.”

You can listen to is interview, and read a summary of the discussion here:

https://www.wbur.org/hereandnow/2021/04/21/racism-healing-chauvin-verdict