The guilty verdicts in Derek Chauvin’s trial affirmed what we all saw with our own eyes—the senseless murder of George Floyd. These verdicts mean that Derek Chauvin will be held accountable, but they will not bring justice to Mr. Floyd, who should be alive today. Nor will they bring justice to his family, or to countless other Black people who have been killed by those sworn to uphold the law.
The systems that enable police violence remain in place. Since March 29, the day the Chauvin trial began, the New York Times reports that “at least 64 people have died at the hands of law enforcement nationwide, with Black and Latino people representing more than half of the dead.”
Other systems of racist oppression that worsen the health, impede the education, and shorten the lives of BIPOC people also remain in place. We will see justice, and experience it, when these systems are dismantled.
The goal of dismantling systems of racist oppression may feel unattainable, but it is not. Each of us has a role to play in creating a just world. At Fenway Health, we must center racial equity in everything we do. We committed to becoming an anti-racist organization in 2020, and we are still in the early days of a process that will be ongoing and transformative. We will work to overcome the disparities and inequities that exist in the services we provide, the people we reach, and the outcomes we achieve.
This work goes to the heart of who we are, and why we exist. We are in it for the long haul, and we are in it together.