House Speaker Nancy Pelosi had months (and months) to ponder what she would say if and when former Minneapolis Police officer Derek Chauvin was convicted of the murder of George Floyd. Which makes what she did say on Wednesday -- in the immediate aftermath of the Chauvin verdict -- all the more baffling.

"Thank you, George Floyd, for sacrificing your life for justice," Pelosi said at an event with the Congressional Black Caucus shortly after the verdict. "For being there to call out to your mom, how heartbreaking was that," Pelosi said during the news conference. "And because of you ... your name will always be synonymous with justice."

Clearly, this is a poorly constructed line. Floyd didn't want to "sacrifice" his life. Pelosi's comment seems to bizarrely suggest that Floyd had some choice in the situation, when in actuality he had zero say or control over whether a police stop would end in his death.

While Floyd's death sparked a national movement aimed at examining and reforming race and policing, the best outcome for Floyd and his family would be that he was still alive. That Chauvin hadn't kneeled on his neck for nine-plus minutes as Floyd said, repeatedly, "I can't breathe."

And while the verdict reached Tuesday gives his family some sort of closure after such a heartbreaking and terrible year-long ordeal, racial profiling by police remains a huge and unacceptable injustice in this country.

Source: CNN

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