September 23rd. A day that continues to live in infamy.
September 23rd, 1955. The murderers of then 14-year-old African American boy Emmett Till are acquitted.
September 23rd, 2020. The murderers of 26-year-old African American girl Breonna Taylor are acquitted.
On March 13th, 2020, members of the Louisville Metro Police Department fatally shot Breonna Taylor, a 26-year-old full time Emergency Room technician, in her home in Louisville, Kentucky. Taylor’s death erupted a national outrage, sparking conversations surrounding race, police brutality, and safety of minorities in America. Taylor’s case is among the many that have also ignited a national conversation surrounding defunding the police.
What has become more shocking has been the verdict of Ms. Taylor’s murderers.
Writers Richard Oppel Jr, Derrick Bryson Taylor, and Nicholas Bogel-Burroughs, in their 2020 New York Times article, “What We Know About Breonna Taylor’s Case and Death”, write “the death of Breonna Taylor, a Black medical worker who was shot and killed by Louisville police officers in March during a botched raid on her apartment, led to wide-scale demonstrations in the spring and summer as the case drew more attention…a grand jury indicted a former Louisville police officer on Wednesday for wanton endangerment for his actions during the raid. No charges were announced against the other two officers who fired shots, and no one was charged for causing Ms. Taylor’s death.”
Subsequently, following the verdict, protests in Louisville have outraged, adding fuel to the cultural and political fire surrounding race in America. All of this coming at a time where the future of this country will once again be in the hands of the American people. President Donald Trump has shown little compassion, remorse, or recourse for the current state of the United States, a community he is obligated to support and protect acting as President. Some might even argue his militant and blatant disregard for diversity in support of supremacy played a role in creating an environment built on hate.
What does it mean to be an American in 2020? What does Breonna Taylor’s case say about what it means to be an American in 2020? The fact that the police officers involved in the shooting were only punished for the shots they missed rather than the innocent life they took sheds a concerning light on the regard of Black lives in America.
