Janell Ross,
NBC News•August 17, 2020
The first night of the Democratic National Convention featured a series of voter testimonials, speeches and a reserved conversation that centered on racial justice.
The first hour of the convention brought repeated references to the Black Lives Matter movement, the disproportionate number of Black Americans killed by police each year and the multi-city protests which roiled the nation this summer. But there was little talk about specific policy commitments to address various forms of racial injustice.
Former Vice President Biden facilitated a conversation with social justice activist Jamira Burley, Chicago Mayor Lori Lightfoot, Houston Police Chief Art Acevedo, NAACP President Derrick Johnson, and activist and author Gwen Carr, mother of Eric Garner, a Black man killed during an arrest in 2014. “Most cops are good but the fact is that the bad ones have to be identified and prosecuted and out – period,” Biden said.
Image: Mayor Muriel Bowser (DNC)
In the moments before the conversation, Muriel Bowser, mayor of Washington, D.C., stood on a balcony overlooking the capital city area previously known as Lafayette Square. It was renamed Black Lives Matter Plaza by the Bowser administration when federal law enforcement clashed with and removed protesters from the square to make way for a Trump photo opportunity at a nearby church earlier this summer. Bowser’s decision to have the words “BLACK LIVES MATTER” painted on a street that runs between the White House and a nearby historic church where Trump addressed reporters and posed with a Bible, inspired similar public art in other cities.
However, in recent weeks, protesters in Washington, D.C. have criticized Bowser’s opposition to one of the protest movement’s chief demands: reallocating funding from the city’s police department to social programs and services. Bowser, who backed the billionaire former New York City mayor Michael Bloomberg during the Democratic primary, described the plan to reallocate police funding as unsound and actively worked to block the change. Bloomberg’s candidacy ran aground, in part, because of his vociferous support for Stop and Frisk while mayor of New York City. A federal court ruled that police stopped and frisked black and Latino residents in a discriminatory and grossly disproportionate way. Bloomberg disavowed the policy when he launched his presidential campaign.
The seeming gap between Bowser’s convention night speech — describing support for a “reimagining of the nation” — and her position on police funding was not unique.
Lightfoot, whose Monday night convention comments amounted to a call for increased economic opportunity for more Americans, has also faced criticism from protesters and other social justice advocates in Chicago. Those critiques intensified Friday when Lightfoot announced plans to form a task force responsible for tracking protester social media activity for early indications of planned looting. Lightfoot also said at the same press conference that she would consider using tear gas should looting recur in that city.
Acevedo, the Houston police chief, offered convention viewers an uplifting take on the protests and debates that spread across the country this summer. Many police officers recognized the death of George Floyd as a departure from American norms, he said. But Acevedo has been the subject of long-running critiques from Houston police accountability activists who argue that he has refused to release police body cam footage from a recent series of Houston police shootings.
“What a motley crew,” said Mary Frances Berry, a professor of American social thought and history at the University of Pennsylvania. “You should not expect the party to have anybody who might deviate from the party line and say something like the policing bill passed in the House,” which the Democrats control, “would not do much of anything. I don’t expect hard truths to be told during a convention. It is about packaging and marketing. That’s what they are doing.”
Among the racial justice event’s most poignant speakers were relatives of George Floyd, a Black man killed by police in Minneapolis earlier this year.
“Our brother should be alive today,” said Philonise Floyd, the brother of George Floyd. “Breonna Taylor should be alive today. Ahmaud Arbery should be alive today. Eric Garner should be alive today. Stephon Clark, Atatiana Jefferson, Sandra Bland -- they should all be alive today. So it's up to us to carry on the fight for justice. Our actions will be their legacy.”
Floyd ended his comments by asking for a moment of silence.
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In the moments before the conversation, Muriel Bowser, mayor of Washington, D.C., stood on a balcony overlooking the capital city area previously known as Lafayette Square. It was renamed Black Lives Matter Plaza by the Bowser administration when federal law enforcement clashed with and removed protesters from the square to make way for a Trump photo opportunity at a nearby church earlier this summer. Bowser’s decision to have the words “BLACK LIVES MATTER” painted on a street that runs between the White House and a nearby historic church where Trump addressed reporters and posed with a Bible, inspired similar public art in other cities.
However, in recent weeks, protesters in Washington, D.C. have criticized Bowser’s opposition to one of the protest movement’s chief demands: reallocating funding from the city’s police department to social programs and services. Bowser, who backed the billionaire former New York City mayor Michael Bloomberg during the Democratic primary, described the plan to reallocate police funding as unsound and actively worked to block the change. Bloomberg’s candidacy ran aground, in part, because of his vociferous support for Stop and Frisk while mayor of New York City. A federal court ruled that police stopped and frisked black and Latino residents in a discriminatory and grossly disproportionate way. Bloomberg disavowed the policy when he launched his presidential campaign.
The seeming gap between Bowser’s convention night speech — describing support for a “reimagining of the nation” — and her position on police funding was not unique.
Lightfoot, whose Monday night convention comments amounted to a call for increased economic opportunity for more Americans, has also faced criticism from protesters and other social justice advocates in Chicago. Those critiques intensified Friday when Lightfoot announced plans to form a task force responsible for tracking protester social media activity for early indications of planned looting. Lightfoot also said at the same press conference that she would consider using tear gas should looting recur in that city.
Acevedo, the Houston police chief, offered convention viewers an uplifting take on the protests and debates that spread across the country this summer. Many police officers recognized the death of George Floyd as a departure from American norms, he said. But Acevedo has been the subject of long-running critiques from Houston police accountability activists who argue that he has refused to release police body cam footage from a recent series of Houston police shootings.
“What a motley crew,” said Mary Frances Berry, a professor of American social thought and history at the University of Pennsylvania. “You should not expect the party to have anybody who might deviate from the party line and say something like the policing bill passed in the House,” which the Democrats control, “would not do much of anything. I don’t expect hard truths to be told during a convention. It is about packaging and marketing. That’s what they are doing.”
Among the racial justice event’s most poignant speakers were relatives of George Floyd, a Black man killed by police in Minneapolis earlier this year.
“Our brother should be alive today,” said Philonise Floyd, the brother of George Floyd. “Breonna Taylor should be alive today. Ahmaud Arbery should be alive today. Eric Garner should be alive today. Stephon Clark, Atatiana Jefferson, Sandra Bland -- they should all be alive today. So it's up to us to carry on the fight for justice. Our actions will be their legacy.”
Floyd ended his comments by asking for a moment of silence.
Our goal is to create a safe and engaging place for users to
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