Chauvin’s conviction shouldn’t overshadow anti-Blackness at SU

Derek Chauvin’s conviction is not a cause for celebration. 

Neither is it a marker of progress.

A man was tried. And he was convicted. In my mind, only George Floyd’s family can determine the meaning of those events. 

We, the rest of us, do not carry the burden of losing a loved one in that way, so our hot takes are, in the end, irrelevant.

Unless we did lose a loved one in that way. I am thinking of Samaria Rice and Sybrina Fulton, Lezley McSpadden and Janet Baker. I am thinking of Geneva Reed-Veal and Mertilla Jones. I am thinking of those who did not receive this same news. 

I am thinking of them, and I am aware — perhaps more than you, dear reader — that what we witnessed was not justice, but breadcrumbs. Chauvin was scapegoated — and I do not mean this to defend him. I mean this to say that his conviction was aimed at appeasing the (Black) masses. 

But anti-Blackness remains entrenched in this system. 

In fact, it remains entrenched in this very university. 

I want us to consider for a moment Chancellor Kent Syverud’s remarks in the wake of the verdict. He said, “Our campus must be a place where all individuals feel safe, supported, and empowered. Let’s commit to actions that change our community and our society for the better.”

I read these words and I am saddened. Deeply. Because while they sound good, ethically, they ring hollow. They are empty, vapid claims steeped in platitudes of “togetherness.” 

But they are not about justice. And they are not about ethics. To be ethical would mean to be hospitable to those deemed “other”; it would mean opening oneself to the words of the other, to the demand the other makes. 

And yet, this hasn’t happened. 

In the time that I’ve been employed here, I’ve witnessed so much anti-Black violence. And I’ve also witnessed multiple excuses — so many that, at this point, the excuses are to be expected. As I witness both, I’m reminded that, even amidst all the initiatives and the money, this place — the place where I work, the place that pays my bills — is not welcoming to me, not open to my thoughts or my presence. 

I’ll give you a brief example. A couple of years ago, and after some serious prodding, I reluctantly agreed to do a presentation on “racial sensitivity” for the Department of Public Safety. As soon as I walked in, the space was hostile. I was grilled about my social media account and was met with frowned faces and smug interrogatives.

But I knew what it was. So I told the DPS up front that my job was not to let them know my political views, but to educate them on the stakes of their enterprise. And from there, things began to flow smoothly. 

Until we got to Tamir Rice. 

As I mentioned that Tamir was 13 and he was playing with a toy, an officer interjected: “He had a gun!” “He did not,” I said back. It went back and forth until I felt my own voice raising and my blood beginning to boil. I said it was time for a break. I stepped out and then returned to finish the “training.” 

I don’t remember how the rest of the “training” went. The chief assumed it went well, and I believe I said something like “this went better than I thought.” The chief assented and shook my hand. Being raised right, I shook it back and returned to my office.

But what I meant by “it went better than I thought” is that — and this is not a hyperbole — I left that room uninjured and alive. Before I did the training, my partner advised against it, as she, too, was worried that I could have been harmed. 

This — this — is what anti-Blackness does.

It makes one hypersensitive to the presence of anti-Blackness, and it places one in a perpetual state of paranoia. And my paranoia was founded: less than a year later, the DPS union wrote a letter singling me out as one of the reasons why students don’t trust them on campus. 

Thankfully, my department had my back. But in the time between that letter and now, there has been no correspondence nor any public acknowledgement of the violence of that letter. To my knowledge, no one outside my department laid bare the precarious position such a letter could put me — an untenured, Black and queer faculty member — in. There was no action. There was no commitment. 

I don’t bring this up to air personal grievances. I bring it up because my experiences are only a microcosm of the sustained and planned neglect that an institution like SU practices. For all the chancellor’s rhetoric of “commitment to change,” there is a profound lack of change happening on campus. 

Sure, there’s a new committee here and another initiative there. Money is being spent; committees are being formed. But in the final analysis, change hasn’t really happened. DPS remains intact, with little oversight and accountability. 

And despite us being an educational institution, there are no requirements for religion, history, women and gender studies, African American studies, and Native American studies, to name a few. And this lack of a requirement is coupled with an even more conspicuous dearth of professors to teach these subjects. 

But we do have new facilities. We have new dining halls and recreation centers. 

I’m not suggesting that these things shouldn’t have been built. But I wonder about the expediency with which they were built in light of what this university — this country — is experiencing. It seems, to me anyway, that we’ve traded in the idea of education for a more profitable idea of “student experiences.” 

“Justice” is relegated to the margins of the curriculum and placed second to profit motives.

That’s a shame.

But I guess it’s to be expected. 

So much for change.

Biko Mandela Gray, PhD

Assistant Professor of American Religion
Syracuse University