Joe Biden Visits A Protest Against Police Brutality In Wilmington, Delaware
Former Vice-President and presumptive Democratic nominee Joe Biden visited a protest against police brutality in Wilmington, Delaware on Sunday and talked to a few protesters. Biden posted about the visit on his Instagram account on Sunday evening.
The photo Biden posted showed him kneeling on the brick street speaking to a black man and a young black child. Biden is separated from the man and child by yellow police tape, which is blocking off the site of the protest. All of the people in the photo were wearing masks and practicing proper social distancing. Biden appeared to be deep in conversation.
In the caption on the Instagram post, Biden acknowledged the way that protesters are feeling in the wake of George Floyd’s death during an incident with Minneapolis police on Monday. He said that Americans must not let their overwhelming feelings overpower them in these difficult times.
Biden went on to say that the country is in need of a leader who will not only facilitate a conversation about racial tensions in the country but listen to the people who are suffering. He said that he went to the protest on Sunday to listen to what protesters had to say and he would continue to listen.
As protests against police brutality around the country in response to Floyd’s death became violent earlier in the week, Biden spoke out, condemning violence as a method of protest.
“Protesting such brutality is right and necessary. It’s an utterly American response,” Biden said in a statement on Saturday.
“But burning down communities and needless destruction is not. Violence that endangers lives is not. Violence that guts and shutters businesses that serve the community is not.”
Biden expanded on his beliefs about the protests in a statement posted to his Medium account on Sunday.
“Every person of conscience can understand the rawness of the trauma people of color experience in this country, from the daily indignities to the extreme violence, like the horrific killing of George Floyd,” the statement said.
“The act of protesting should never be allowed to overshadow the reason we protest. It should not drive people away from the just cause that protest is meant to advance.”
The former Vice-President acknowledged the collective anguish that Americans are feeling and encouraged people to use those feelings and their passion to drive the movement for racial equality forward. He ended the statement by promising that the country would get to a place where people of all races believe that the police will protect them and not harm them.
Biden has made very few public appearances since the coronavirus pandemic hit the United States but has begun to venture out again since Memorial Day.
