‘It does us no good to deny that,’ Harris, the senator and vice-presidential hopeful, told CNN. ‘Let’s just deal with it. Let’s be honest.’
U.S. Sen. Kamala Harris, the Democratic vice presidential nominee, slammed President Donald Trump and Attorney General William Barr for claiming that institutional racism does not exist.
“I don’t think that most reasonable people who are paying attention to the facts would dispute that there are racial disparities and a system that has engaged in racism, in terms of how the laws have been enforced,” said Harris in a Sunday interview with CNN’s Dana Bash on “State of the Union.”
“It does us no good to deny that. Let’s just deal with it. Let’s be honest. These might be difficult conversations for some, but they’re not difficult conversations for leaders,” Harris opined. “Not for real leaders.”
In an in-depth CNN interview with Wolf Blitzer earlier in the week, Barr dismissed the idea of “two justice systems,” saying, instead, “I think we have to be a little careful about throwing the idea of racism around. I don’t think it is as common as people suggest.”
Read More: AG William Barr says Jacob Blake shooting may have been justified
Despite being pressed multiple times on the subject, Trump has also refused to acknowledge that systemic injustice exists in the country, despite the fact that so many peaceful protests have taken place against it.
Instead, the president told a reporter, “Well, you know, you just keep getting back to the opposite subject. We should talk about the kind of violence we’ve seen in Portland and here and other places.” Trump was speaking while on a trip to Kenosha, Wisconsin, where he toured businesses that had been burned in the wake of Jacob Blake‘s shooting by a Kenosha Police officer.
Read More: Trump wants to pull funding from schools that use 1619 Project curriculum
Harris, a former attorney general for California, told CNN she feels that America has to “re-imagine” public safety.
“If we want to create safe communities,” she said, “one of the smartest ways we can do that is investing in the health of those communities because healthy communities are safe communities.”
Read More: The not-so-hidden racism behind mispronouncing Kamala Harris’s name
In the same interview, Harris refuted the Trump’s recent claims that a vaccine for coronavirus would be ready for the American public as early as October.
When asked if she would take such a vaccine, Harris maintained that she would “trust the word of public health experts and scientists,” but not that of the president alone.
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