Friends,

Today, the police officer who murdered George Floyd was sentenced to prison.

It is the first time in Minnesota history that a white police officer is being imprisoned for murdering a Black man.

Many in our community are breathing a sigh of relief — while at the same time acknowledging that many Black and Brown people have faced sentences much longer for doing far less.

And I’ve said it many times before: One police officer being held accountable is not true justice. True justice would mean that George Floyd is alive today.

Yes, this is another step on the path to accountability. But the systems of oppression that have created the conditions for injustice have not gone away.

Our communities, especially Black and Brown communities, are still being brutalized by the police.

We are still investing more in increasingly militarized police departments than in the basic needs of our communities.

So many of our institutions were built to oppress and ostracize Black and Brown people, and continue to do so today.

We have yet to achieve true, enduring justice, in that courtroom today or anywhere else. But for George Floyd, Philando Castile, Daunte Wright, and so many others who have been murdered at the hands of police, we can never stop fighting to achieve it.

In solidarity,

Ilhan Omar