A statement on the Derek Chauvin verdict
Dr. Patricia Hoben, City Forward Collective president and executive director, released the following statement on April 21, 2021:
To the City Forward Collective community –
The three unanimous guilty verdicts reached by the jurors in Minnesota represent legal accountability for George Floyd. We are relieved by this outcome.
However, we are also left with an unshakable thought: True justice would mean George Floyd had never been killed in the first place.
The fact is George Floyd should still be alive today. That has always been perfectly clear, and it was repeatedly underscored during Derek Chauvin’s trial. Of course, no legal proceeding can reverse the murder of George Floyd. That means the best possible outcome could never be true justice.
We will know true justice when trials like this one are no longer necessary. That’s the day all of us are working toward.
The murder of George Floyd inflicted trauma on the Black students and families of our city, as have many other injustices before and since. The jury’s verdict didn’t heal that trauma, and the trial itself forced many to relive this pain involuntarily and repeatedly. Going forward, City Forward Collective will be working to ensure our city’s schools are equipped to provide the holistic social-emotional learning supports our students need to learn and grow.
Last summer, I shared with you City Forward Collective’s commitment to combat racism inside and outside of our organization. Since then, we have been working with an external Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion consultant to help inform our efforts. We also worked to define our organizational values and guiding principles, and to begin expressing them through our work. We landed on four core values: Equity, Impact, Justice, and Community. All of this has guided our team in discussion, learning, and development. It has also shaped the programs we’ve offered during this school year and our plans for the future.
We are still early in this work, and we are still working to understand our role as an organization — when we will have the greatest positive impact by speaking up and when we should remain silent.
We have only just started in our learning, but starting is essential. As valued partners in our work, you know I have much more work to do personally, and we have much more work to do together.
Today I reaffirm my commitment, and that of City Forward Collective, to stand with our city’s Black communities and to use our organizational assets to lead and fight for true justice.
On behalf of City Forward Collective,
Patricia J. Hoben, Ph.D
