The writer Clarice Lispector had a sister, Tania. In one of the letters he wrote to her, he said: “From the moment I resigned myself, I lost all my vivacity and all interest in things. Have you seen how the castrated bull turns into an ox? That is what happened to me (…). One day, a friend was filled with courage and asked me: 'You were really different, weren't you?' He said that he thought she had been passionate and lively, and when he met me here he thought, 'Either this excessive calm is a pose, or it has changed so much that it is almost unrecognizable.' Another told me that I moved with the lassitude of a 50-year-old woman, which can happen with someone who has made a pact with everyone, and who has forgotten that the vital center of a person has to be respected. Listen: respect even the worst of yourself, respect above all the worst of yourself.The worst in myself dictates uncomfortable things to me. I don't know if I respect them. But they are there.
On April 21, a former Minneapolis police officer, a white man named Derek Chauvin, was convicted of the murder of black citizen George Floyd, who was arrested in May 2020 for allegedly paying fake money for a package of cigars. The most relevant evidence on which the sentence was based was the video contributed by a 17-year-old girl, Darnella Frazier, who that day had gone to buy something with her 9-year-old cousin and who, when leaving the store, ran into the scene: Floyd handcuffed face down, Chauvin crushing his neck with one knee, as nonchalant as if Floyd were a piece of carpet. Over the course of 10 minutes, the girl recorded that scene with her phone while Floyd, who screamed "I can't breathe" some 27 times, was suffocating. The trial was conducted with the city militarized - Floyd's death produced,at the time, riots throughout the country - and when the sentence was known Darnella Frazier wept. Then he wrote on his Facebook account: “George Floyd, we did it! Justice has been served ”. And on Instagram: “My heart goes out to George Floyd's family! Although no amount of charges will bring a loved one back, justice has been served and your killer will pay the price. We did it". She received thousands of congratulations, she was spoken of as a heroine.She received thousands of congratulations, she was spoken of as a heroine.She received thousands of congratulations, she was spoken of as a heroine.
My worst thing is wondering: couldn't I do more than film a man suffocating for 10 minutes? Then I tell myself that I was 17 years old. That he was with a cousin of 9. That she is a black girl raised in a place where police violence has already killed a few of the same skin color. That recording that scene, in that context, was an act of courage. That he did it in a city where the first reaction of the Police Department, after Floyd's death, was to post on his page: "A man dies as a result of a medical incident during a police interaction." The following day, the same Department published a kind of waiver: "As additional information becomes available, it has been determined that the FBI collaborate in this investigation." The additional information was the Frazier video, which had gone viral.In 2016, Gallup surveyed Americans' perceptions of the police. 58% of whites had confidence in it compared to 29% of African Americans, and 67% of the latter answered that the police treated them less fairly than whites, but only 16% dared to report it. During the trial, Frazier said: "I have spent entire nights apologizing to George Floyd for not doing more and not physically interacting and not saving his life." Could a 17-year-old girl "have done more" in those circumstances: face a white cop embarked on an execution? I think of myself, at 17 years old. My greatest act of public courage - private ones do not count - was to go, in the midst of the Argentine dictatorship and with some classmates, to shout at the door of the Civil Registry of my city:"It is going to end, it is going to end, the military dictatorship." The dictatorship was ending and that stupid act filled me with pride. I was thinking about it all when the man I live with came into my study. I asked him what he thought of Darnella Frazier. He told me: "That in this century you can be a hero because you have a telephone." I insisted: "No: what do you think of the fact that she has not done anything?" And he answered me bluntly: "But he did do something." I suppose it put, very contemporaneously, things in their place.What do you think of the fact that she didn't do anything? And he answered me bluntly: "But he did do something." I suppose it put, very contemporaneously, things in their place.What do you think of the fact that she didn't do anything? And he answered me bluntly: "But he did do something." I suppose it put, very contemporaneously, things in their place.