WASHINGTON — On Tuesday, a year after George Floyd was killed at the hands of a Minneapolis police officer, his family members will fly to Washington, D.C., for a private audience with President Biden, their first in-person meeting with the president since they buried Floyd.
While White House press secretary Jen Psaki said Biden is “eager to listen to their perspectives and hear what they have to say,” an unfulfilled promise looms over the meeting as progress on police reform has stagnated, including legislation bearing Floyd’s name that Biden had hoped would be law on the anniversary of his death.
Floyd’s murder, and the graphic video that showed his final breaths, sparked an often-incendiary conversation about the role race plays in criminal justice, economics, education and other aspects of American life. But a conversation about systemic racism does not equate to action to dismantle it, and as the nation passes the grim anniversary, activists say that the politicians who embraced change have often failed to enact it.
“While I do believe that flying (Floyd’s family) up and stuff like that, it’s a nice gesture, but it’s not the change that we need,” said Bernice Lauredan, an organizer with Tampa Dream Defenders, a group aimed at ending police and prisons that formed after the killing of Trayvon Martin. “We need deep, deep shifts in just how we view public safety in these cities.”
Martin was a Black 17-year-old from Florida who was shot and killed in 2012 by a local resident who considered him suspicious, setting off demonstrations and making his death something of a precursor to Floyd’s.
Former president Donald Trump regularly made racially charged statements and was hostile to Black Lives Matter protesters, deriding them as violent “thugs.” Biden in many ways framed his presidential run in opposition to that, making racial equity central to his campaign. That raised hopes among civil rights leaders that he would enact far-reaching and long-overdue changes.
Biden knelt in sympathy with protesters during his first in-person campaign event during the pandemic, made history by selecting Kamala Harris as the first Black vice president and, after elected, said all aspects of his administration would work to make American society more equitable.
During his first joint address to Congress, he urged lawmakers to pass police reform by May 25. And when Derek Chauvin, the former police officer who knelt on Floyd’s neck for more than nine minutes, was found guilty of murder, Biden told Floyd’s family, “We’re going to get a lot more done. We’re going to stay at it until we get it done … This is going to be the first shot at dealing with genuine systemic racism.”
But the Black community, like many other Americans, is divided on whether Biden and other national leaders have fulfilled their promise to meet the country’s racial problems head-on.
Few dispute that Biden has elevated Black Americans and other people of color to more prominent positions than any of his predecessors, though some note that his inner circle is still largely White. He speaks regularly about structural racism, and he designed his coronavirus relief package to address racial inequities.
But a criminal justice reform bill that passed the House has stalled in the Senate, becoming a symbol for the unfulfilled hopes of many community leaders. Skeptical activists worry the energy that motivated millions to protest change won’t be enough to overcome the inertia of Washington.
Some have been concerned for months that Biden – a moderate who was criticized during the campaign for speaking kindly of segregationist senators, and who told the host of a radio show aimed at a Black audience that if they selected Trump over him “then you ain’t Black” – was ill-equipped to tackle the problems.
Since Biden’s election, rising crime in U.S. cities has made many politicians even more wary of proposals to strip funding from police departments and redistribute it to schools and social services, a key aim of many protest movements.
Since Lauredan led demonstrators in protests through the streets of St. Petersburg and Tampa, for example, the latter has voted to increase police funding by $13 million.
“The reality is what we’re doing right now isn’t working and we need to try something different,” Lauredan said. “And that’s a long and hard conversation, and I think a lot of people get scared when they hear ‘defund the police’ because they feel like we’re going to go back to some kind of wild, wild West-like kind of life.”
A sweeping voting-rights measure faces an even tougher climb in Congress than the police overhaul, leading to more frustration about Washington’s inability to push through legislation that would enshrine long-term changes.
Cedric Richmond, a senior Biden adviser who has engaged minority communities on behalf of the White House, said detractors shouldn’t judge the administration solely by its ability to get a police reform bill through Congress.
Biden’s coronavirus relief package, for example, included billions for disadvantaged farmers, about a quarter of whom are Black. The money provides debt relief as well as grants, training, education and other forms of assistance aimed at acquiring land.
“I’m just coming from an event with Black farmers where we are educating them on how to get the loans paid off,” Richmond said in an interview Monday. “That’s $5 billion in terms of a down payment on equity in that space.”
He also cited statistics that the American Rescue Plan had reduced Black poverty and closed the gap in vaccination rates between Black and white Americans. And while the Justice Department is independent, Richmond stressed that Biden’s appointees are looking harder at troublesome patterns and practices that lead to unequal treatment by police.
He also said that Biden and others in the administration continue to work with a bipartisan group of senators trying to find common ground on police reform.
“There’s no magic wand in passing legislation,” said Richmond, a former congressman from Louisiana. “It’s hard work. It’s complicated and it’s time-consuming. Senator Booker said the talks have been meaningful, that he and Tim have got an honest negotiation going and they’re trying to get to a good place, and we support that. We don’t want a rushed bill, we want a meaningful bill.”
Sens. Cory Booker, D-N.J., and Tim Scott, R-S.C., along with Rep. Karen Bass, D-Calif., issued a statement Monday saying they are still working toward a deal.
“While we are still working through our differences on key issues, we continue to make progress toward a compromise and remain optimistic about the prospects of achieving that goal,” the lawmakers said.
Lauredan said she and other demonstrators never expected the government to take the lead in enacting change, suggesting that has to come from ordinary people.
“I’m encouraged because I see that people have continued to stay in the streets, like people have continued to be public, and more people than ever have been engaged in the movement for Black lives,” Lauredan said. “So for me, that’s what’s optimistic and that’s what’s exciting. We just need our government to catch up to where the people are.”
Comments are not available on this story.
Send questions/comments to the editors.
