Excerpt from the Jamaica Observer column published Monday, June 28, 2021
By Jean Lowrie-Chin
Photo credit: The Insider.com
We gave thanks when the 22-year sentence was handed down to the cold-blooded police officer Derek Chauvin who squeezed the life out of George Floyd, keeping his knee on his neck for over nine minutes, despite his pleas of ‘I can’t breathe’. We give thanks because every time we think of our US relatives being pulled over by a police officer, we are filled with fear, knowing previous outcomes of similar situations. We give thanks because a brave teenager kept her phone video on for the entire duration so that the world could see the cruelty of racism.
We give thanks that the peoples of the world responded in pain and anger, and ‘Black Lives Matter’ echoed across the globe as humans of every colour marched against the savagery that they saw. We give thanks and we pray that this sentence will be a warning to every racist individual that the world will not stand by and allow their prejudice to stand in the way of justice.
Jamaica Highlights 