“Nothing is going to make it all better, but at least — God! — now there’s some justice,” Biden told Floyd’s family by telephone
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George Floyd got justice, but America faces a long road to absolution. And it’ll take strenuous political work to turn this moment into legislative movement and transform an overwhelming but temporary sense of relief into lasting national redemption. President Biden, Vice President Harris, countless Democrats, and some prominent Republicans rallied behind that message shortly after a Minneapolis jury found former police officer Derek Chauvin guilty of murdering Floyd last May.
“Nothing is going to make it all better, but at least — God! — now there’s some justice,” Biden told Floyd’s family by telephone from the Oval Office moments after the verdicts, before promising to confront “genuine systemic racism.”
President Biden and Vice President Harris speak Tuesday at the White House after former Minneapolis police Officer Derek Chauvin was convicted of murder and manslaughter in the death of George Floyd. (Evan Vucci/AP)
Later, in prepared remarks delivered from the Cross Hall of the White House residence, Biden declared “we can’t stop here” and urged Americans to confront “head on, systemic racism and the racial disparities that exist in policing and in our criminal justice system more broadly.”
And Harris, introducing the president, said, “We still have work to do. We still must reform the system,” and called for unraveling America’s “long history of systemic racism.”
