On the recordJuly 22, 2020
I will be brief. Let me just tell the Senator from Massachusetts that I agree with everything he has said. It shows how people of, maybe, different political ideologies--certainly different parties--can come together and recognize that there is a moment available to us here in which we can demonstrate our nonpartisan support for this act of racial reconciliation in our country. I agree that slavery was the original sin. Our founding documents said that all men and women were created equal, but that certainly wasn't the practice when it came to African Americans at the time who were officially designated as something less than fully human. It was an outrageous act at the time, and our country has paid a dear price for that over the years--from the Civil War to the violence that led up to the peaceful civil rights movement in the sixties. It is obvious from the recent events--George Floyd's death in particular--that we are not where we need to be. We still have room to grow as part of our developing that more perfect Union. I know our friend and colleague Tim Scott, who has been at the forefront of this discussion with his advocacy for the Justice Act, has a lot of bipartisan ideas for police reform. He points out that, as an African American, his experience has been much different from those who are non-African Americans. He said, over the last two decades, he has been stopped--as he puts it, ``driving while Black''-- about 18 different times.…
