Joe Biden says ‘we cannot leave this moment thinking we can once again turn away from racism’ in video address to George Floyd funeral day after meeting his family
- Joe Biden delivered a video message Tuesday to those attending the funderal of George Floyd in Houston
- Back in Delaware, Biden said the country ‘cannot leave this moment thinking we can once again turn away from racism that stings at our very soul’
- Biden had traveled to Texas on Monday and met with Floyd’s family including his six-year-old daughter Gianna
Joe Biden delivered a video address Tuesday to those attending the funeral for George Floyd, the black Minneapolis man who was killed by a white police officer on Memorial Day.
‘Ladies and gentlemen, you can’t turn away, we must not turn away, we cannot leave this moment thinking we can once again turn away from racism that stings at our very soul,’ Biden implored from a large video screen that played to those gathered at the funeral in Houston.
Floyd’s death inspired two weeks of ‘Black Lives Matter’ protests around the nation and have become part of the 2020 presidential campaign, with Biden meeting with Floyd’s family in Houston Monday, and President Trump doubling down on a pro-policing ‘law and order’ message.
Joe Biden, the Democrats’ presumptive nominee, addressed the family and friends of George Floyd Tuesday via video screen from Delaware, after meeting with Floyd’s dauther and other family members Monday in Houston
Joe Biden told the congregation that the country ‘cannot leave this moment thinking we can once again turn away from racism.’ He also brought up the time he spent Monday with Floyd’s six-year-old daughter Gianna
Joe Biden met with the family of George Floyd in Houston on Monday: From left: Congressman Cedric Richmond, Rev. Al Sharpton, Joe Biden, Attorney Ben Crump and Roger Floyd, George Floyd’s uncle
Joe Biden (center left) met with George Floyd’s six-year-old daughter Gianna (center right) and her mother Roxie Washington (left). He expressed his sympathies to Gianna and ‘promised to push for changes in policing,’ according to Washington’s attorney Chris Stewart (right)
During the former vice president’s trip to Texas, Biden spent time with Floyd’s six-year-old daughter Gianna, and was applauded by the audience Tuesday when he talked of her.
‘I know you have a lot of questions, honey,’ Biden said. ‘No child should have to ask questions too many black children have had to ask for generations: why is daddy gone?’ he said, as clapping could be heard in the background.
‘Looking through your eyes we should also be asking ourselves why the answer is so often too cruel and painful,’ he continued. ‘Why in this nation do too many black Americans wake up knowing that they could lose their life in the course of just living their life?’
Biden, of course, brought up his own experience with grief as he addressed Floyd’s family and friends.
‘Jill and I know the deep hole in your hearts when you bury a piece of your soul deep in this earth,’ the presumptive Democratic nominee said.
For two weeks ‘Black Lives Matter’ protests have broken out across the U.S., including in George Floyd’s hometown of Houston (pictured), over his death at the hands of a white police officer
‘And unlike most, you must grieve in public,’ he pointed out.
He called it ‘a burden.’
‘A burden that is now your purpose to change the world for the better in the name of George Floyd,’ he said.
Biden said that the country needed to ‘deal with the denial of the promise of this nation, for so many people, for so long.’
And that the U.S. needed to not only strive to acknowledge that people are ‘created equal,’ as it states in the Declaration of Independence, ‘but are treated equally,’ Biden said.
‘Now is the time for racial justice. That’s the answer we must give to our children when they ask why,’ Biden said. ‘Because when there is justice for George Floyd, we will truly be on our way to racial justice in America.’