Students weigh conviction’s impact
Shortly before noon at Denver’s South High School, a group of students filed out of the building holding large banners that read “Black Lives Matter” and “How Many More?” Under gray skies, in a damp chill, they stood in silence for 9 minutes and 29 seconds, the amount of time that Derek Chauvin knelt on George Floyd’s neck.
Young people around the metro area have reacted with a mix of relief and reflection to the announcement Tuesday that a Minnesota jury found Chauvin, a fired police officer, guilty of murdering Floyd outside a corner store last year. As much as students were grateful for the conviction, they know that much work remains to be done.
Ninth-grader Graça Jovelino bowed her head as she held a drawing she had made of Floyd, Breonna Taylor and Ahmaud Arbery.
“These things that are happening are not normal,” she said in Portuguese. “Racism is a sickness of some white people. We’re all children of God, and we should love each other in spite of everything. Inside we’re equal. We shouldn’t be mistreated.”
Charlotte Anderson, student body co-president at South, said she started crying when she heard
the verdict. She hadn’t dared to hope for a conviction. As a young Black woman, Floyd’s murder and those of so many others have hit close to home. It’s also been surprising to see the case serve as a wake-up call for white Americans.
“How did you not know this? If you are Black in America, you know this,” she said.
Anderson, a high school senior, said walking out with her classmates, as students at South have done many times in response to injustice, in some ways was a comforting act of normalcy in what has been a strange school year.
At the same time, standing outside in the cold weather drove home just how much Floyd suffered.
“My hands were numb, but it was really important for everyone to feel the weight of just what a long time that is,” she said. “He said ‘I can’t breathe’ 26 times. It shows how deliberate that action was. It felt like forever. I hope it’s a time for everyone to reflect on that and the life that was lost.”
Students in Jennifer Carabetta’s student council class at Denver’s Northfield High School helped organize one of the biggest Black Lives Matter marches in the city last summer. On Wednesday, some of those same students discussed the verdict.
Carabetta started by having the students, some of whom were in person and others of whom were online, type their thoughts on virtual sticky notes. She read some responses out loud.
“This case will be a pivotal point in the elimination of systemic racism in the United States,” one student wrote. Others saw it differently, saying the case was important but the issues underlying it — racism and police brutality — are still rampant.
“Honestly, right now, I don’t feel satisfied,” another student wrote.
“He was convicted, so we count this one as a victory,” yet another student wrote. “But all of the other ones … got away and were not held accountable. Yesterday was just the beginning.”
After Floyd’s death last year, the Denver school board voted to end the district’s contract with Denver police. School resource officers are being phased out districtwide, and Northfield is set to lose its school resource officer at the end of this academic year.
Some students in Carabetta’s class argued it was unfair to characterize all police officers as bad. Senior Gabriel Watkins said he wasn’t allowed to play with Nerf guns as a child for fear an officer would mistake it for a real weapon. But he said having police work in schools is a good thing because it improves relationships between police and young people.
However, sophomore Gabriela Kobak said that characterization, the stigma that all police are dangerous, is born of real fear. “People have the right to be scared,” she said.
At the University of Colorado, the verdict brought only a momentary feeling of relief for senior Isaiah Chavous, one of three student body presidents at the Boulder campus.
Since Floyd’s murder, Chavous and the CU student government have worked with the school’s administration to create on-campus police reform changes, including a recent agreement to form a police oversight board.
Chavous said he has tried to understand various sides of the issue of police reform but also the need to grapple with racist systems that affect him as a person of color.
“It’s important for everyone to know that the conversation needs to carry forward,” he said. “This is only a temporary win. And so we’re pushing for the systemic win for that long-standing change.”
Chalkbeat reporter Jason Gonzales contributed to this report. Chalkbeat Colorado is a nonprofit news organization covering education issues.
For more, visit co.chalkbeat.org.