Black Americans Have a Message for Democrats: Not Being Trump Is Not Enough

Joe Biden wants to heal the soul of the country in this moment of protest and loss, and win the White House. Simply telling people to vote in November may not help with either goal.

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COLUMBIA, S.C. — In an on-camera address after a week of destructive protests, former vice president Joseph R. Biden Jr. pleaded with his audience to imagine life for black people in America. Imagine, he said, “if every time your husband or son, wife or daughter left the house, you feared for their safety.” Imagine the police called on you for sitting in Starbucks.

“The anger and frustration and the exhaustion, it’s undeniable,” he said.

Exhaustion. For many black Americans across the country, what a year this month has been. The coronavirus pandemic has continued to disproportionately kill black people, and a spate of high profile killings in recent months in Georgia, Kentucky, and Minnesota, the latter two at the hands of the police, led to widespread demonstrations nationwide.

Protests shook more than three dozen cities on Saturday as crowds expressed outrage over the death of George Floyd, a black security guard who was killed in police custody in Minneapolis. Demonstrators shut down freeways, set fires and battled police batons and tear gas, the pain and frustration of the moment spilling out into the streets.

Read more at https://www.nytimes.com/2020/05/31/us/politics/black-americans-democrats-trump.html?referringSource=articleShare