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HARRIS: A Nation Replete with Racism & Hate
In a January 27, 2019 presidential campaign speech, Senator Harris asserted that: “Racism, sexism, anti-Semitism, homophobia, transphobia are real in this country. They are age-old forms of hate with new fuel. And we need to speak that truth so we can deal with it.”
On January 21, 2019, Senator Harris said: “[T]oo many unarmed black men and women are killed in America. Too many black and brown Americans are locked up. From mass incarceration to cash bail to policing, our criminal justice system needs drastic repair.”
When launching her 2020 presidential campaign on January 21, 2019, Harris said: “I’m running to fight for an America where no mother or father has to teach their young son that people [police] may stop him, arrest him, chase him, or kill him, because of his race.”
During a presidential campaign stop in February 2019, Sen. Harris said of America: “[W]e are the scene of a crime when it comes to what we did with slavery and Jim Crow and institutionalized racism in this country, and we have to be honest about that.”
When Republican Attorney General Bill Barr stated in 2020 that “I don’t agree that there is systemic racism in police departments generally in this country,” Senator Harris said: “I think that Donald Trump and Bill Barr are spending full time in a different reality. The reality of America today is, what we have seen over generations and frankly since our inception, which is we do have two systems of justice in America.”
On March 19, 2021, Senator Harris said in a speech at Emory University: “Racism is real in America and it has always been. Xenophobia is real in America and always has been. Sexism, too.”
HARRIS: Praising the Anti-American “1619 Project”
Democrats have largely embraced the tenets of the so-called “1619 Project,” a New York Times creation which has made its way into the curricula of thousands of classrooms nationwide, and whose overarching theme is the claim that America is a racist nation that was born with the original sin of slavery and can never be redeemed. Harris has praised the 1619 Project as “a powerful and necessary reckoning of our history.”
On August 18, 2019, Senator Harris tweeted in support of The 1619 Project: “We must speak this truth: the very foundation of our country was built on the backs of enslaved people.”
HARRIS: Supporter of Renaming Columbus Day as “Indigenous People’s Day”
During a presidential campaign stop in New Hampshire in 2019, a voter asked Sen. Harris if she was in favor of renaming Columbus Day as “Indigenous People’s Day.” She replied: “Sure, sure. Yeah. And why it matters is to your very point, we have to remember history … we have to remember our history, uncomfortable, to your point about truths, though it may make us.” Emphasizing the importance of addressing the “vestiges of all of that harm,” Harris concluded: “Count me in on support.”
At the National Congress of American Indians’ 78th Annual Convention on October 12, 2021 — the day after Columbus Day — Harris said: “Since 1934, every October, the United States has recognized the voyage of the European explorers who first landed on the shores of the Americas. But that is not the whole story. That has never been the whole story. Those explorers ushered in a wave of devastation for Tribal nations — perpetrating violence, stealing land, and spreading disease. We must not shy away from this shameful past, and we must shed light on it and do everything we can to address the impact of the past on Native communities today.”
HARRIS: Praising Black Lives Matter & Its Message
Black Lives Matter (BLM) was founded by three openly Marxist revolutionaries in 2013. It is a movement that:
The anti-police rhetoric of BLM and leftwing political figures like Kamala Harris, coupled with the aggressive, confrontational tactics of BLM agitators, gave rise to a nationwide climate of extreme hostility toward law-enforcement in the wake of the May 25, 2020 death of George Floyd – a black man who, shortly after having ingested a fatal dose of fentanyl, died during a physical confrontation with a white police officer in Minneapolis. With an increasingly militant criminal element now feeling emboldened by the anti-police climate, there were dramatic spikes in violent crime and homicide rates in cities across the U.S., along with at least $7 billion in property destruction resulting from BLM-led riots during the summer of 2020.
During a February 21, 2019 interview, Senator Harris praised BLM for its “incredible” and “smart” activism in demanding “change” to a criminal-justice system replete with “bias” and “systemic racism.”
On June 2, 2020, Senator Harris said in a speech: “The reality of it is that the life of a Black person in America historically, and even recently … has never been treated as fully human. And it is time that we come to terms with the fact that America has never fully addressed the systemic racism that has existed in our country. That’s just a fact. And so, the people protesting on the street are protesting understanding that we have yet to fulfill that promise of equal justice under the law. And there is a pain that is present that is being expressed in their constitutional right to march and to shout.”
In that same June 2, 2020 speech, Harris said: “And I can say, with full certainty, that it is time that the leaders in this United States Senate, in this United States Congress, take action to reform a criminal justice system that for far too long, has been informed by systemic racism and by racial bias…. It is time that we say that one should not be subjected to the indignity of being told to get on your knees and put your hands behind your head, simply because you are walking while Black. And it happens every day in America. There’s not a black man I know, be he a relative, a friend, or a coworker, or colleague, who has not been the subject of some form of racial discrimination at the hands of law enforcement, not one I know…. That’s why the people are marching in the streets.”
On June 4, 2020, Cosmopolitan magazine published an opinion piece written by Senator Harris in which she boasted about having “joined thousands of protesters in Washington, D.C. as we marched through the streets to demand justice for George Floyd.” Condemning what she viewed as the intransigent scourge of American racism, Harris wrote: “Let’s speak the truth: People are protesting because Black people have been treated as less than human in America. Because our country has never fully addressed the systemic racism that has plagued our country since its earliest days…. No longer can some wait on the sidelines, hoping for incremental change. In times like this, silence is complicity. It will take each of us to confront the injustices that continue to perpetuate a broken system that has taken countless Black Americans’ lives…. And it’s time for all of us—not just some—to speak out against racism.”
In a June 17, 2020 appearance on The Late Show with Stephen Colbert, Senator Harris stated that the nationwide BLM protests would, and should, continue indefinitely: “They’re not going to stop. This is a movement, I’m telling you. They’re not going to stop and everyone beware, because they’re not going to stop. They’re not going to stop before Election Day in November, and they’re not going to stop after Election Day…. I am very clear that some of the success we have been able to achieve around criminal justice reform would not have happened in recent years without Black Lives Matter.”
In August 2020, Senator Harris, who had just been named as Joe Biden‘s vice presidential running mate, said, in a reference to the influence that BLM and its allies were having on America: “[W]e’re experiencing a moral reckoning with racism and systemic injustice that has brought a new coalition of conscience to the streets of our country, demanding change.”
In a September 2020 interview during the NAACP’s national convention, Harris praised the “brilliance” and “impact” of what she characterized as BLM’s very “necessary” protests. “I actually believe that ‘Black Lives Matter’ has been the most significant agent for change within the criminal justice system,” she said.
HARRIS & BIDEN: Supported a Bail Fund to Keep BLM Rioters out of Prison
Harris publicly supported the Minnesota Freedom Fund (MFF), which made bail payments on behalf of many people who were arrested for their participation in the George Floyd riots in Minneapolis and were awaiting trial. In June 2020, the senator tweeted: “If you’re able to, chip in now to the @MNFreedomFund to help post bail for those protesting on the ground in Minnesota.” Thanks in part to Harris’ endorsement, MFF received more than $35 million in donations.
At least 13 staff members of Joe Biden’s 2020 presidential campaign made personal donations to the MFF.
BIDEN: A Nation Replete with Racism & Hate
In a commencement address that he delivered to the black graduates of Howard University on May 13, 2023, President Biden declared that “the most dangerous terrorist threat to our homeland is white supremacy.”
Biden charges that “White America” has been too reluctant to acknowledge that “systemic racism” has “been built into every aspect of our system.”
On October 11, 2021, which was Columbus Day, President Biden issued a “A Proclamation on Indigenous Peoples’ Day,” in which he said: “For generations, Federal policies systematically sought to assimilate and displace Native people and eradicate Native cultures…. We must never forget the centuries-long campaign of violence, displacement, assimilation, and terror wrought upon Native communities and Tribal Nations throughout our country.”
On February 10, 2021, White House spokeswoman Jen Psaki said that President Biden supported athletes who chose to protest the national anthem at sporting events, characterizing Biden’s position as follows: “[P]art of the pride in our country means recognizing moments where we as a country haven’t lived up to our highest ideals. It means respecting the right of people granted to them in the constitution to peacefully protest.”
BIDEN: A Nation in Need of Transformation
During the 2020 presidential campaign, Biden stated that:
WALZ: Weak Response to the Death of George Floyd & the Riots
During the Tuesday and Wednesday that followed the Monday, May 25, 2020 death of George Floyd, BLM-affiliated protests and riots in the city became increasingly numerous and violent, leaving the area looking like a war zone. Minneapolis’ Democrat mayor, Jacob Frey, telephoned Governor Walz on Wednesday to request that the governor deploy National Guard troops to help quell the chaos. But not until Thursday, May 28, did Walz sign an executive order activating the Minnesota National Guard. This was too little, too late, however. As of Thursday night, only 90 National Guard troops were on the ground in the Twin Cities — an insufficient number to combat the massive hordes of rioters and vandals. The violence, therefore, continued to grow more intense. Perhaps the most memorable scene that day was the burning down of the Minneapolis Police Department’s 3rd Precinct building, which occurred after Walz himself had instructed the police to surrender the building to the arsonists and flee the scene. Meanwhile, Walz issued at least two separate statements indicating that he had completely failed to avert the massive crisis that was now engulfing the city:
Walz finally mobilized the full Minnesota National Guard on Saturday, May 30. And by Sunday, May 31, the violence in Minneapolis had largely abated, but not before enormous damage had been done.
On June 9, 2020, Governor Walz issued a proclamation urging Minnesotans to honor the memory of George Floyd by marking the start of his 11:00 a.m. funeral service that morning with a period of silence lasting 8 minutes and 46 seconds – the length of time that Officer Derek Chauvin had allegedly pressed his knee down upon Floyd’s neck. “The world watched in horror as George Floyd’s humanity was taken away from him,” read Walz’s proclamation. “We will not wake up one day and have the disease of systemic racism cured. We must do everything in our power to come together to deconstruct generations of systemic racism in our state so that every Minnesotan – Black, Indigenous, Brown, or White – can be safe and thrive.”
WALZ: Praising Black Lives Matter & Its Message
During the course of the mayhem that was tearing Minneapolis apart after the 2020 death of George Floyd, Governor Walz issued a number of statements characterizing the violence as an understandable response to America’s long legacy of racism against black people, and as a wake-up call to the nation at large. Some examples:
DEMOCRATIC PARTY: Alliance with Black Lives Matter
In August 2015, the Democratic National Committee:
On September 16, 2015, five BLM activists met at the White House with President Obama and other administration officials. For one of the five, Brittany Packnett, it was her seventh visit to the Obama White House. Afterward, Packnett told reporters that the president had “offered us a lot of encouragement with his background as a community organizer”; “told us that even incremental changes were progress”; and exhorted the activists to “keep speaking truth to power.”
In a December 2015 interview, Obama described BLM as a positive force that was doing the vital work of shining “sunlight” on the fact that “there’s no black family that hasn’t had a conversation around the kitchen table about driving while black and being profiled or being stopped” by police.
At a Black History Month event at the White House in February 2016, Obama praised two BLM leaders as “young people … who are making history” with the “outstanding work” they were doing “on behalf of justice and equality and economic opportunity” – work that would “take America to new heights.”
On July 10, 2016, Obama likened BLM to the abolition, suffrage, and civil rights movements of yesteryear, saying that all of them were noble, even if they were sometimes “contentious and messy.”
On July 13, 2016 — six days after a BLM supporter in Dallas had shot and killed five police officers and wounded seven others — Obama hosted three BLM leaders at a lengthy meeting at the White House.
At the 2020 Democratic National Convention, former President Obama said to young BLM activists directly: “To the young people who led us [in protests] this summer, telling us we need to be better—in so many ways, you are this country’s dreams fulfilled…. You can give our democracy new meaning. You can take it to a better place. You’re the missing ingredient – the ones who will decide whether or not America becomes the country that fully lives up to its creed.”
During a June 19, 2020 interview on CNN, BLM co-founder Patrisse Cullors declared: “[O]ur goal is to get Trump out.”
On October 9, 2020, BLM launched a Political Action Committee to “actively engage in the general election” by supporting Joe Biden, Kamala Harris, and other Democrat political candidates.
On November 7, 2020 — the same day that several mainstream media outlets declared Joe Biden and Kamala Harris the winners of the 2020 presidential election — BLM co-founder Patrisse Cullors sent a letter to the victors, signing it “on behalf of the Black Lives Matter Global Network” and demanding political payback for BLM’s efforts to get them elected: “We are requesting a meeting with you both to discuss the expectations that we have for your administration and the commitments that must be made to Black people. We want something for our vote…. Black people won this election…. Black Lives Matter invested heavily in this election…. We want to be heard and our agenda to be prioritized.”
TRUMP: Rejects the 1619 Project
On September 17, 2020, President Trump, in an effort to combat the toxic message of the 1619 Project, announced the creation of a 1776 Commission to “encourage our educators to teach our children about the miracle of American history.” “Our mission is to defend the legacy of America’s founding, the virtue of America’s heroes, and the nobility of the American character,” said Trump. “We must … teach our children the magnificent truth about our country…. Our youth will be taught to love America with all of their heart and soul.”