These next words will not be easy for most of you to receive. Nor are they easily delivered. I am asking you to trust the discomfort, to embrace it.

It may light a path for us to yet escape … Ourselves.

I believe Derek Chauvin, along with the other three officers presently serving time for the murder of George Floyd, should be given another trial. Yes, I watched the streaming film “The Fall of Minneapolis” and found it to be the worst kind of right-wing mind control, while also being slick and compelling.

Americans have a duty to protect the rights of those with whom they disagree. When we place preservation of our principles above our personal prospects, our nation’s values are fortified. We all stand a little taller and project the kind of integrity a great nation can be built upon.

Occupying a sympathetic space for one of the most hated men of this generation is incredibly difficult for me personally because of “That look.” I have recalled the smug indifference on former officer Chauvin’s face countless times since that heartbreaking Memorial Day in 2020.

I would spare him but one sentence should he and I ever cross paths. “That was a living, breathing person beneath your knee and he was begging for his life … you feckless animal.”

His face bore a generational hatred that is familiar to every Black person in America. It declared his eternal enmity with skels, toads, thugs, punks … with me, as an unmistakable and piercing punctuation of my place in this society.

His look — that look — echoed a familiar warning across time and space: “You can be chosen for oblivion, too … boy.”

Justice for all

I believe former officer Chauvin contributed to the death of George Floyd, but I have come to believe he did not get a fair trial. There was quite a lot of bungling by others that could have changed the outcome that day.

Body camera footage, prior to Chauvin even being on the scene, shows Floyd speaking rapidly with pressured speech. Instead of seeing a suspect, medical personnel would have seen someone who needed treatment for a psych condition or under the influence of powerful drugs. Cops are not good at making that distinction.

Fire rescue personnel were dispatched to the call from a few blocks away and took 20 minutes to arrive at the scene. The city even settled a civil lawsuit with the family for $27 million before the criminal trial even started.

A Chauvin conviction was a forgone conclusion.

The city of Minneapolis hoisted the flag of surrender to the emotions of an angry mob — a police precinct burned while officers fled for their lives. The leadership of that city and state manufactured a quick resolution to a discomfiting mess. The Chief of Police, according to the film, even lied about the department training that infamous kneeling posture while under oath on the witness stand.

Mob rules

Instead of getting the city’s house in order, officials hung the rank-and-file cops out to dry by letting them take the fall for a failure of leadership and protocol. That is not justice for George Floyd. Rather, it only ensures that there will be others who will suffer similar injustices.

I refuse to allow my dislike of anyone to invalidate their humanity. The act of standing up for the privileges and immunities of your enemies is the most patriotic of all. It builds character and defines you as a person with the fortitude to vigorously represent your beliefs with honor.

Like a true American should.

The most unified America has felt during my lifetime was during the months immediately following the attacks on 9/11 as shock gave way to rage and we collectively cried out for vengeance. Seemed like the entire world was reluctant to defy the voice of the American people and mostly stepped aside while we went down that rabbit hole in Iraq.

China and Russia grumbled a bit. English Prime Minister Tony Blair went against the entire constituency of the United Kindgom, sounding his own political death knell, rather than not support Dubya in his misguided quest. Few publicly defied us. No one took any real action to stop us.

They all knew better.

The right thing

When America combines her vast resources with the collective will of her people, the rest of the world admires us and tries to be like us. Democratic nations are falling to autocratic regimes all around the world, their people now without say in their fate. Our enemies form alliances and openly plot our demise while our government projects an impression of malignant impotence and toxic avarice.

President Biden would probably get a five-point bump in the polls if he came out and asked for a review of the convictions of all the cops serving time over the death of Floyd. This would show he is standing on principle while prioritizing truth over popularity and substance over soundbite. A true leader is guided by principle.

Contrast that with the inane, incoherent, and utterly sophomoric rhetoric coming from the unwatchable clown show in the House of Representatives. Our enemies are emboldened every single time Marjorie Taylor Greene opens her mouth, and someone should really tell Lauren Boebert that when our elected leaders misbehave like drunken whores in public, the terrorists win.

I am speaking to the adults in the room because I know many of you know better than to cast votes for leaders without vision, education or common sense. Living in the perpetual spin cycle of the present day, it is essential to grab hold of those principles we were taught to believe.

Many of us are able to understand the detrimental effect of the policies and entities in causes we support, but have no problem turning our heads when the injustices are landing on those with whom we disagree. America can no longer afford that luxury.

We may yet escape ourselves if we can abandon the shallow comforts afforded by entrenched bias and conflict. America’s promise of liberty and justice for all includes everyone … even shady cops.

Finally embracing that principle in earnest may be our last hope.