We begin today’s roundup with analysis of the Derek Chauvin trial. Ibram Kendi, writing at The Atlantic:

Enslaved people were habitually told to remember (and obey) the “good” masters. Violently policed people today are constantly told to remember (and obey) the good cops, as a writer in Forbes urged after Floyd’s death last year. “The vast majority of law-enforcement officers are heroes,” Senator Mitch McConnell said in September. Weeks later, the then–presidential candidate Joe Biden said, “I have worked with police in this country for many years. I know most cops are good, decent people. I know how they risk their lives every time they put that shield on.”

Police officers do risk their lives. But do I risk my life every time I pull over for an armed police officer? When I don’t have my documents in my hand on the steering wheel and I comply and reach for them, an officer can shoot me dead like one did Philando Castile. Compliance is not a lifesaver. When I comply completely, like Toledo did, I feel lucky to survive police encounters.

At The Daily Beast, Kali Holloway writes about the violence that plagues Black lives:

Whether it’s state agents or self-deputized vigilantes, there are no isolated incidents where white American violence against Black folks is concerned, and the historical ubiquity of white terror is evidenced by the devastation and loss it has wreaked in Black families otherwise separated by time and distance. A staggering number of Black American family trees have branches that have been abruptly severed by brutal white terror—a forest of Black lives splintered by white American violence. Nearly every Black person in America knows the danger of weaponized whiteness intimately, through personal experience or its impact on friends and relatives, in the form of years stolen, trauma inflicted, lives taken.

Damon Linker at The Week writes about the lasting damage Trumpism is doing to our democracy:

When one side becomes convinced that its political opponents represent a genuine threat to country, it finds itself tempted to change the rules of the game to advantage itself and disadvantage those opponents. And when that happens, the other side receives confirmation that itsopponents are manipulating the system in their own favor, jeopardizing the legitimacy and trustworthiness of future contests for power.

And Charles Pierce adds his reflection on a party that has “lost its mind”:

In other news, Jane Mayer remembers Walter Mondale:

On a final note, Marina Koren at The Atlantic reflects on a helicopter on Mars:

As with other robotic missions, NASA maintains a Twitter account for Perseverance, the rover that brought Ingenuity to Mars in February, and dispatches are written from the perspective of the machine. “I love rocks,” Perseverance tweeted in February to its followers, who currently number 2.7 million. “I’m on the move!” it exclaimed in March as it took its first drive. “I’ve taken my first selfie,” the rover said earlier this month, showing us a picture of its robotic frame, with Ingenuity in the background. NASA has already shared imagery of Ingenuity’s flight—from Percy, stationed nearby, and from the helicopter itself, which captured its shadow flitting across the surface of Mars.