When The Wicked Perish, There Is Joyful Shouting

I am pleasantly surprised by the fact that Derek Chauvin has been found guilty on all counts in the murder of George Floyd.  I had my doubts as to whether the American so-called "justice" system which has been used so devastatingly against unarmed people of color would actually be willing and able to dispense justice to some of the perpetrators of that devastation.  Derek Chauvin is to me a throwaway person - a worthless pile of used toilet paper like so many cops in America's police forces, a piece of garbage thug, a worthless junkyard of a human being.

Yet the news of Chauvin's conviction has also unleashed a great, shaking anger in me.  For there are many just like him who have gone unpunished.  These include Darren Wilson, George Zimmerman, the murderers of Philando Castille and Eric Garner and Tamir Rice and Breonna Taylor, and the murderers of Stephon Clark.  The anger I feel right now is never very far from the surface of my consciousness.  Yet that anger is what drives me to the study of strategic nonviolent resistance.  For that resistance is not about trying to be "spiritual" or trying to build "beloved communities" with unrepentant racist white supremacist piles of garbage.  I'm not trying to melt their hearts.  Their souls are their problem.  My conception of strategic nonviolent resistance is about using indirect means to put myself and my people into a position in which we can no longer be assailed by such thugs.  In other words, it is the most radical example of the strategy of indirect approach.  

One salve for my anger is the thought that these unrepentant murderers haven't really gotten away with anything.  For a day will come in which they leave this earthly life - even though it be from old age - and then they will stand before a Judge who cannot be corrupted.  The smoke of their torment - literally, the smoke of their torture - will rise forever and ever.