The former US vice president and presumptive Democratic nominee, Joe Biden, on Thursday slammed the response of President Donald Trump to the ongoing George Floyd protests, accusing the president of dividing the nation by forcing “the worst of us to come out”.
He argued that on racial issues a president must be an example for the nation and bring Americans together.
“The words a president says matter, so when a president stands up and divides people all the time, you’re going to get the worst of us to come out,” Biden said during a Thursday virtual town hall meeting moderated by actor Don Cheadle.
The former vice president said that 10 to 15 percent of Americans “are just not very good people”. Though Biden did not clarify who those 10 to 15 percent might be, he distanced himself and the attendees of the town hall from that group, stating: “that’s not who we are”.
“Do we really think this is as good as we can be as a nation? I don’t think the vast majority of people think that,” the presidential hopeful said, speaking to black supporters. “There are probably anywhere from 10 to 15 percent of the people out there that are just not very good people, but that’s not who we are. The vast majority of the people are decent, and we have to appeal to that and we have to unite people — bring them together. Bring them together.”
Biden acknowledged, however, that electing him the next US president would not eradicate systemic racism in the country, observing that Americans must continue their cause to rid the nation of racism and race hate.
“Hate didn’t begin with Donald Trump, it’s not going to end with him,” Biden said. “The history of our country is not a fairy tale, it doesn’t guarantee a happy ending, but as I said earlier, we’re in a battle for the soul of this nation. It’s been a constant push and pull for the last 200 years”.
The presumptive Democratic nominee said that he misjudged the progress the nation has made on race, as he formerly thought that racism had dropped sharply in the US after the election of its first African-American president, Barack Obama, in 2008.
“I thought we had made enormous progress when we elected an African-American president, I thought things had really changed,” Biden said. “I thought you could defeat hate, you could kill hate. But the point is, you can’t. Hate only hides, and if you breathe any oxygen into that hate, it comes alive again”.
Speaking about ongoing protests triggered by the murder of an African-American resident of Minneapolis named George Floyd by white police officers on 25 May, Biden warned against allowing peaceful demonstrations to become violent.
“We can’t allow the protesting to overshadow the purpose of the protest,” Biden said. “So there’s going to be a lot of folks that are going to want to cause trouble. Some cops, but some folks too. It’s going to take young leaders like you to change things in the city”.