Cher, please take off your cape and just watch the Derek Chauvin trial
Cher, please take off your cape and just watch the Derek Chauvin trial
If you believe Black Lives Matter, use these 10 tips to stop discrediting your own points
Writer’s note on April 20, 2021: The jury found Derek Chauvin guilty of all three charges — up to 40 years in prison for second-degree murder, up to 25 years for third-degree murder and up to 10 years for second-degree manslaughter. Judge Cahill revoked Chauvin’s bail and ordered he be remanded into custody after announcing the jury’s verdict. He will formerly be sentenced in eight weeks time.
Writer’s note: Cher has deleted her original tweet as of Mon., April 5.
Cher has apparently envisioned herself to be a superhero. According to one of her most recent Twitter posts, “I Know This Is Gonna Sound CRAZY,But.. I Kept Thinking …..Maybe If I’d Been There,…I Could’ve Helped.” My shoulders slumped reading this tweet because she’d just made an amazing point about Jim Crow laws and how racism influenced voting laws. Here we are once again with the white savior complex, and this is just not the time to make someone else’s tragedy revolve around you.
At this moment, I just want to hear trial testimonies. I’ve become a glutton for punishment and watched every witness in the Derek Chauvin trial twice. While I’ve muted my television and/or smartphone every single time I see Chauvin’s knee on George Floyd’s back and neck, I return to listening and watching whenever the testimonies start again. But this background heroism is distracting, and these opinions are becoming (almost) as exhausting as watching this trial. I beg you to just stop. Here are 10 things I really need you to cease doing while watching this Derek Chauvin trial.
Stop suggesting your celebrity presence would’ve made all the difference. Even when Oscar-winning actor Denzel Washington showed up to diffuse an arrest, guess what happened? That man still went with the police. If being a legendary celebrity automatically created magic fairy dust to rid the world of all racism, Cicely Tyson would’ve done this in the ’60s during her “I, Spy” days. Or Harry Belafonte. Tina Turner. Marvin Gaye. The list goes on.