After going out to personally meet with demonstrators in Delaware, presumptive Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden has taken a firm stand against the police killing of George Floyd and the overall plight of African Americans who’ve been targeted, brutalized and killed by law enforcement officers.
“’I can’t breathe. I can’t breathe,’” Biden said in a lengthy address on June 2. “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,” Biden pronounced.
Between 2013 and 2019, police in the United States killed 7,666 people according to data provided by Mapping Police Violence, a research and advocacy group. The number of police killings in America disproportionately affects African Americans, who despite only making up 13 percent of the U.S. population, are two-and-a-half times more likely than whites to be killed by police.
Biden’s address comes as uprisings continue throughout the country and as viral video and news reports show police using tear gas to disperse peaceful demonstrators gathered near a church where President Donald Trump visited.
Trump has also suggested that police should shoot demonstrators and he continues to publicly consider using U.S. Armed Forces to combat protesters.
A new ABC News/Washington Post poll shows Biden up nationally by a 53 percent to 43 percent margin among registered voters.
CNN reported that the context of individual polls continues to show Biden is in one of the best positions for any challenger since scientific polling began in the 1930s.
“There were more than 40 national public polls taken at least partially in the month of May that asked about the Biden-Trump matchup,” CNN reported. “Biden led in every single one of them. He’s the first challenger to be ahead of the incumbent in every May poll since Jimmy Carter did so in 1976. Carter, of course, won the 1976 election.
“Biden’s the only challenger to have the advantage in every May poll over an elected incumbent in the polling era,” CNN reported.
In his address, Biden expressed concern for African Americans and other minorities who have suffered under oppressive government policies.
He said Floyd’s last words 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,’” Biden said, “It’s a wake-up call for our nation. For all of us.”