It isn’t the end. It’s just the beginning.
This isn’t about Derek Chauvin. It’s about George Floyd, Breonna Taylor, Ahmaud Arbery, Jacob Blake, Eric Garner, Tamir Rice, Tony Robinson, Philando Castile, Alton Sterling and so many others — too many more Black people being killed on a regular basis by police officers for whom those lives simply don’t matter. It isn’t about justice. Justice would have been Floyd apprehended instead of murdered. You’re kidding yourself if you think sports stars are more preoccupied right now with the uproar over football’s aborted European Super League than the verdict in the Chauvin case over the murder that rocked the world last year. They aren’t. Not the ones I spoke to on Wednesday. Or the ones I exchanged text messages with. For them, it is all about Floyd. On both sides of the Atlantic, Black sports stars know that they have to operate on the basis that it could easily be them.
