“‘I can’t breathe. I can’t breathe.’ George Floyd’s last words. But they didn’t die with him. They’re still being heard. They’re echoing across this nation,” ……
“They speak to a nation where too often just the color of your skin puts your life at risk. They speak to a nation where more than 100,000 people have lost their lives to a virus and 40 million Americans have filed for unemployment — with a disproportionate number of these deaths and job losses concentrated in the black and minority communities …..And they speak to a nation where every day millions of people — not at the moment of losing their life — but in the course of living their life — are saying to themselves, ‘I can’t breathe.'”
– Joe Biden
The world is looking at the US the way everyone has been watching the crackdown on pro-democracy protesters in Hong Kong, or how we saw the guy in the white shirt face off tanks in Tianamen Square in 1988. Nobody admires the US anymore.
Watching the execution without trial of George Floyd for a crime that might have drawn 3 years in prison was terrible. I haven’t spoken with my Trump-voting family but I suspect they would blame Floyd as they have blamed other victims of police violence for having committed some original sin that justifies anything done by cops.
Yet cops managed to arrest Peter Manfredonia, who killed two people and injured another and who was armed and on the lam, without shooting him or restraining him with a knee on the neck. How is an unarmed black guy so much more dangerous than an armed white guy who already killed two people? And contrast the forceful crackdown on unarmed, peaceful crowds protesting police violence vs. the armed protests about getting haircuts and going back to bars.
My family are conservatives who would rather see innocent people punished or suffer rather than let one guilty person get away with something (exceptions for people like themselves, who are principled and reasonable even when doing something illegal, whether it be minor like speeding or major like stealing), whereas liberals would prefer a few guilty people escape punishment rather than risk unjustly punishing one innocent person.
Well said Mr. Biden. Thanks for posting Karen.
Now THAT’S what a true president would say.
I just took a deep breath. Grateful.
My kids did two protests in LA. Many miles. So proud of them. Peaceful and so moving they said. They’re going again on Friday.
I wish we had a president now who really cared for all Americans and not just for himself.
Peace and love for all, we are one!
He has my vote. Well, he did before this but that was a fabulous speech.