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Former Vice President Joe Biden speaks during the National Action Network Breakfast, Jan. 21, 2019, in Washington, D.C. |
Systemic racism has indeed existed in America since its founding, and, it still exists today. Albeit not as overtly or as viciously as it once did.
We have undoubtedly come a long way since the 1950's and 1960's, yet we still have a long way to go in reaching the finish line. When opportunity for minorities reach parity with white folks in all areas of life, and earned rewards for a job well down have reached parity with white folks, then and only then can we say we've shed the stigma of systemic racism.
Following are remarks made by Former Vice President Joe Biden:
Former Vice President Joe Biden, speaking at a breakfast Monday morning in Washington honoring Martin Luther King Jr., said that white Americans need to acknowledge and admit the fact that systemic racism still exists and must be rooted out.
"The bottom line is we have a lot to root out, but most of all the systematic racism that most of us whites don't like to acknowledge even exists," Biden said at an event hosted by the Rev. Al Sharpton and the National Action Network. "We don't even consciously acknowledge it. But it's been built into every aspect of our system."
He continued, "Because when your schools are substandard, when your houses are undervalued, when your car insurance costs more for no apparent reason, when poverty rates for black Americans is still twice that of white Americans, ... there's something we have to admit. Not you -- we -- White America has to admit there's a still a systematic racism. And it goes almost unnoticed by so many of us."
Biden also expressed optimism that positive change is on its way, referencing the historic nature of the presidential inauguration he attended 10 years ago this weekend, when Barack Obama became the nation's first African-American president.
"There I was, it just hit me, standing, waiting for a black man to come 28 miles from Philadelphia to pick me up and take me on a 128-mile ride to be sworn in as president and vice president United States. Don't tell me, don't tell me things can't change!" Biden said to applause.
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