GLENN LOURY AND JOHN MCWHORTER: Derek Chauvin Did Not Murder George Floyd.

In the documentary What Killed Michael Brown?, Shelby Steele coins the term “poetic truth” in order to describe the persistence of the myth that Michael Brown was “executed” by Darren Wilson. Steele calls poetic truth, “a distortion of the actual truth that we use to sue for leverage and power in the world. It is a partisan version of reality, a storyline that we put forward to build our case.” Poetic truth “thri[ves] more by coercion than reason,” accusing all who dispute it of complicity with the ineradicably racist system that governs and has always governed the country.

That Darren Wilson executed Michael Brown is one such poetic truth; that Derek Chauvin murdered George Floyd is, I believe, another. Despite the aptness of Steele’s term, poetic truth is no truth at all, nor is it particularly poetic. It is power masquerading as fact, brute force in the guise of knowledge.

But all the people who yelled “Free Mumia!” are now saying that everything is settled beyond dispute by a court.