To Be Open: There's No "Post-Chauvin" Until Everyone Feels Safe and Welcome

The Oregon Way is being willing to give this American experiment another try. Again. And then again. Until we get it right.

Rukaiyah Adams is the Chair of the Albina Vision Trust.

"Damian Lillard at the Black Lives Matter march in Portland" by Matthew Almon Roth is licensed under CC BY-NC 2.0

Here’s the truth: I tried to write this post about the context and meaning of the Derek Chauvin judgment for America, for Oregon.

I desperately wanted to conjure honest, but polite words to describe the piercing pain that many of us have felt for the last year as a former police officer’s choice to kneel on a man’s neck for 9 minutes, 29 seconds was scrutinized in our legal system.

I wanted to be the kind of lawyer, the kind of woman, who could channel eloquent rage, who could be rational and dispassionate in this civic debate about justice.

I wanted to convey, with rhetorical precision, how profoundly sad it has been to watch a video taken by a teenaged girl of a man murdered on a busy street in broad daylight, only to endure another public spectacle of a trial.

I wanted to tell you that it felt like we all, and I mean all of us, just left George Floyd’s body in the street while we debated if…not how, but more the basic issue of if…anyone would be held accountable.

It’s true. I wanted to share. I wanted you to know. I wanted to find the words. But I cannot. At least not yet. I am still too wounded and tender to rearrange the tangle of emotions into narrative form. But this I can say: my expectations for how we live together have become clearer.

• Our legal system must deliver justice for everyone. Consistently.

• Many will not and should not be satisfied with superficial adjustments to public safety and how we fund it. Change is necessary.

• Children should not bear the responsibility of reminding us of our humanity. Having them document brutality, and then expecting them to testify about what they saw in order to achieve justice, is socially-sanctioned abuse.

• Shared grief and trauma is transformational. There is no going back or pretending that everything is fine. It’s not.

• A guilty verdict is woefully inadequate. Until Black people no longer have to parent their children to avoid, respond to, or manage the dangers of interacting with police, we still have work to do.

• The issue is pervasive. Minnesota is Oregon is every state in the union.

• We cannot understand each other if we do not even try.

So much has happened since the Chauvin verdict. Many others have been killed. Other children have captured brutality on video. The continuation is rage inducing.

Over time I hope to comprehend the growth and transformation that flowed from a global outpouring of love and grief for George Floyd. I hope to understand the unresolved shame and rage we have always carried—even though some are just now publicly acknowledging it. Perhaps then, I can find a way to compose an optimistic, insightful essay.

For now, though, as I ponder the path forward, the best that I can do is to be honest. To be open. To know that these platforms are for meaningful exchange between Oregonians—for real emotion, not just sanitized policy ideas. To reveal that I am gutted. But, to nonetheless believe that we are in it together. To be willing to give this American experiment another try. Again. And then again. Until we get it right.

That is the Oregon Way.

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