President Joe Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris addressed the nation Tuesday night, after the Derek Chauvin guilty verdict. It is worth noting that the Vice President spoke first, and she addressed the systemic inequality black people have endured.

 

Vice President Harris also talked about another aspect of George Floyd’s legacy: The legislation named after him. The George Floyd Justice in Policing Act, which is due to go before the Senate for consideration, was designed to hold police departments accountable and to end racial profiling.

When the president took his turn at the podium, he called systematic racism “a stain on our nation’s soul, the knee on the neck of justice for black Americans.”

President Biden talked about Floyd’s murder as a wake-up call to the entire country.

But while Biden explicitly called out systemic racism, he cited the hope that the guilty verdict offers. He said this outcome “can be a moment of significant change”  and was a step forward in addressing institutional racism.

He also commended the various law enforcement officials who took the extraordinarily rare action of testifying against a fellow officer during the trial.  He also challenged officials at every government level to take active measures to combat the problem.

“State and local governments and law enforcement…need to step up. But so does the federal government.”

Biden cited the nominations of two civil rights lawyers, Vanita Gupta and Kristen Clarke, to key posts in the DOJ as examples of his commitment to tackling systemic racism. Both of whom are women of color, and both are already bracing for heated opposition from Republicans during the nomination process.