Derek Chauvin, the former Minneapolis police officer was the man who kneeled on the back of George Floyd’s neck, which led to Floyd’s death. The long-awaited trial to decide if Chauvin was guilty of murder resulted in Chauvin’s eventual conviction.
Many people took to social media to celebrate the result of the trial. During my time scrolling seeing these posts, there was one post that left me dumbfounded.
The Las Vegas Raiders posted this image after the trial, and like many others, I was confused with the intention and meaning behind it.
To me, this post reads as a weird victory or conclusion to the trial but comes across as being extremely distasteful. It feels like the Raiders were saying that the fight to end police violence was over and that we can all rest easy after the result of the trial.
But to me it feels like a way of trying to just gain publicity, this does not feel like an appropriate response. There is still so much work to be done to end police violence, this is just a single step in the right direction.
While I do think it is appropriate to look at the result of the trial as a victory, it does not right the wrong that a man was killed. I think the marketing team for the Raiders is missing a valuable point – that the fight is not over. I was also very disappointed with the choice of words in the post. The rearranging of a dying man’s words to look progressive for social media is in poor taste.
While I think it is clear that the Raiders were trying to do something good, they went about it horribly. Many users commented on the social media post asking for it to be deleted but as of now the post is still up on the Raider’s Twitter account. I think the marketing team for the team is clueless, and their lack of response about the post shows this.
I would suggest the marketing team for the Raiders needs to have some sort of adjustment. I think this post came across as very disingenuous and just to make their brand look good. Let’s hope the backlash causes some change and leads to more appropriate responses when it comes to matters of life and death.
(Image taken from the Las Vegas Raider's twitter)
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