[applause] vice pres. Biden hi. Thank you all for being here. I to want to remind everyone this event has been set up to adhere to social distancing guidelines. Keep your mask on when you are speaking. Thank you for being here. At the end of the program, we will give you guidance to take a socially distanced photo. Vice pres. Biden in case you want one. I thought i was supposed to come up this way. Good afternoon, everyone. Lets get energy. My name is tim mahomes. I appreciate everyone being here. I want to thank reverend barker for your hospitality and for convening what we know is a very important discussion in our community. Vice president joe biden, dr. Jill biden is in the house, i believe, somewhere. [inaudible] she always does. Id like to welcome both of you here for what you know is a town of love, unity and compassion. You spent most of your career unifying people, bringing people together. Much like your hometown, scranton, youve often talked about family values. Working class families. Kenosha is that kind of town. Where we come together as people, and what unites us in our inner soul is love, compassion. In this time of healing and hurt and pain, we need that love and compassion. And we know your leadership is all about unity, not division. Its about healing. So we thank you for being here today because we know your leadership is important in kenosha and in our country. We also know lets be clear, black americans face systemic racism in a variety of areas. Lets be real about that. Much like many marginalized communities. Far too long. We know with your vision and your leadership and your sense of urgency to dismantle systemic racism in health care, workforce development, education, affordable housing, we know your vision will heal this country. We know your vision will bring neighborhoods back together, and we thank you for that. Now, it gives me great pleasure to introduce to you our host, reverend barker. Please come and give us opening prayers. Rev. Barker welcome, everybody. It is a real privilege to look out on my neighbors here in kenosha, and i can see so many people who have had at the core of their life seeking welfare for our city. It is a privilege to have all of you here today. It is a real privilege to have Vice President joe biden here today to listen and to seek healing and justice for us in kenosha. Thank you for taking the time this afternoon. Welcome. Please rise as you are able as i offer a prayer. Let us pray. Oh, healing god, we continue to lift up jacob blake. Lord, continue to bring healing to his grievous wounds. Lord, miraculously enable him to walk again. We lift up his family. Bring them comfort during this tumultuous, challenging time. Oh, god of justice, we ask for justice for jacob blake. We ask for justice for our community here in kenosha. Oh god, who anoints leaders to anoints, we ask that you the leader of our country in november who will, at their core, seek justice, love mercy, humbly walk with you and love their neighbor as themselves. Confidence that you will make that happen for us in november. These things in the name of the father, the son, and the holy spirit. Amen. You may be seated. Thank you, reverend barker, for those inspiring words. I want to thank you for the great work you do in the neighborhood. Not far from here, we have devastation and destruction. We know your church has a leadership role in that recovery so thank you for that and many blessings. Here we are, ladies and gentlemen, here to have a community conversation. Is that right . A few ground rules. In the interest of safety and health, that we protect each other, social distancing rules are important and will be applied. We have four selected speakers we will start with. I will call them up, let them speak. Speak to the mic closest to you. After they are finished, we will call up folks. We ask that you practice social distancing. The microphones will be here. Take your time. We will give about five minutes per person. I have been told i have the right to put the mask over your mouth and shut it down a little bit, but take your time. Because you know, Vice President joe biden is here to listen, learn and help us heal. Fair enough . Tim tompkins, Community Resident and former marine. Thank you for coming today. What i would like to talk about what i would like to talk about is an american issue, race inequality. When we talk about race inequality in america, we need the conversation of programs. We need to start putting money behind programs and putting things into action. Several euros ago, ben carson im sorry, ben gordon said we know what the problems are, we need to start putting money behind the solutions. We know with the problems are in the africanamerican community. We know what the problems are in the hispanic community. But when you were looking at wisconsin, which is considered the worst place in the United States for people of color, 34 of African Americans live in poverty. 24 of hispanics. 28 of native american indians. And 18 of people who are asian descent. So, when you talk about that race inequality, it also means about inclusion and taking those steps that we need to address those issues. We need to address the issues of employment. We have all of these jobs around here but we dont have the medium income and the difference between white families and africanamericans in the state of wisconsin is 50 . We are earning 50 of what those family incomes are. If we are not paying People Living wages the Automotive Industry that was here, the White American brass were a community that built things. We have a lot of intelligent people, a lot of skills that are still here. It is just tapping into those resources and creating those opportunities in employment. When i was the hr director in a municipality, one of the things we did was band the box. We dont need to look for new employees. We are pushing them out of the prison system each and every day. When those individuals come back to our communities, we need to start providing Second Chances for them. We also need to address the gaps within our education system. Not that we dont have a Public Education system, but we have a Public Education system that is not equitable. We need to make sure that each program and every school is the same. We need to make sure that black sports programs and white sports programs are funded the same. We need to make sure that science programs and art programs are funded the same. Not that they just exist, but that they have the same quality and they are the same quilt. Because you cannot build programs that do not have the same resources and economic ability to push those forward to be successful. The biggest thing i see going on right now, and it just breaks my heart, when we talk about race inequality, we need to look at housing. We look at whats going on during this covid. We have so many people right now because of not having that economics, not being at work at this time. They are losing housing. If you look over in texas, it is heartbreaking to see all these people in the middle of a pandemic, in the middle of just having a hurricane come through this area, and now they are being placed on the streets with their belongings. We have to move beyond that. The other thing that is still out there is we need to create jobs. We need to create living wages and opportunities for people that they can be apart of that American Dream. I wanted to talk about the criminal Justice System, but we have such a wonderful person here that will be able to follow up on that. We have to realize we have to stop pushing people into jail. We have to start Getting Solutions such as rehabilitation. When the crack epidemic hit america, it was in the black community. Americas solution was jail, jail, jail. Now that we have opioids in the white community, the solution is to provide police and firefighters with narcan, send them back to their families and make sure they have the rehabilitation services. We need to take a look at the criminal Justice System because we dont have the Mental Health services and we dont have the drug addiction and other services needed to prevent people from getting caught up in a cycle that takes away from that American Dream and takes away from that opportunity for equity. Thank you. Vice pres. Biden thank you. Tim thank you, tim. Jeff, would you please come forward . 30 years of service in the firefighting. Thank you, jeff. Thanks for coming. Thanks for listening. Our members are tired after this past week. Some of them are beat up pretty good, but their spirits are high. The reason why their spirits are high is because of their appreciation and love our community has shown us after the fires. Everything that has been dropped off at the firehouses to people stopping us on the streets telling us thanks. It may be think about appreciation. I think a lot of people at a lot of Different Levels need to start showing appreciation for one another, and letting people know that everybody matters. I know i feel good when i feel appreciated. I think its a basic human thing that everybody else does, too. One of the interesting things in the Fire Department is that we have an opportunity to see so many social and economic problems in peoples homes before there is a program, before there is access to health care, before this is an actual problem. Ive seen it for 30 years. Id like to tell you that it is Getting Better every day, but its not. One of the things that we see, particularly in the areas of people of color, is their ability to Access Health care at a time when it is when it has the chance to be preventative, to be healing. So many of the things that we see are a result of chronic ability not to get that health care. Those small things turn into chronic things. The most chronic things turn into emergencies. Thats when we get called. As a result of that, our systems are being taxed. In many cases we have even asked people why did you not seek help from your doctor . I dont have a doctor. Why did you not take this heart medication . I cant afford it. Now, we are at a point where you are taking a trip to the emergency room. At times, we are the only health care that some folks have access to. We never failed to show up. We show up damn fast. And sometimes even thats not enough. So, those are some of things that we see with regard to a problem in the community that needs attention. If there were clinics or there were availability for lowlevel health care access, we wouldnt see quite so much of what we have to deal with from an emergent standpoint. Again, pride, dedication and courage thats what we all signed up for. Our thumbs are up and were forging forward and we would like a whole bunch of other people to be able to feel the same appreciation we do. Thanks for being here. Appreciate it. Tim thank you for that. And thank you for keeping kenosha safe. 103 years of service barbara, would you come forward please . Can i touch this . Thank you, joe, for being here. It is a great honor for me to be invited here. My name is barb. My sister and i have a framing and art gallery two blocks down the road. Our great grandfather started our business and our business has succeeded through recessions, depressions and all the difficulties that happen, but we have never, ever seen anything as devastating as what has gone on in our community. Were very fortunate because they didnt start our building on fire, like so many of them in the uptown area have been burnt to the ground. They did break our windows, get into our store. They looted and they tried to start a fire, but a Good Samaritan came by and took this rack of our beautiful scarves out into the sidewalk and put it out. Otherwise, our store would have been up in flames. I look at the buildings in our community that are gone and i just i dont think ive really grieved as much as i feel i should because, being a business owner, i have to keep going. I have to keep working. The day after this happened at our store sunday, they went downtown and did their devastation. Then on monday night, they came in our area. Tuesday morning, we had a group of fellas come up and board up our building and we were open for business. Weve been continuing to be open for business even though it is boarded up. The love and compassion in this community has been overwhelming not only to us, but the whole community. People are coming together and showing respect and love towards each other. It makes me so very proud to be in this community. Thats what we do when we have difficulty. We support and help and love. So, thank you so much for allowing me to come here and give you a business perspective. Were lucky we are still standing. Thank you. Tim thank you, barbara. You know the community loves your story very much. Anything we can do to help rebuild you, we will. Sir, you are about to hear from one of the sharpest, youngest legal minds in kenosha. Angela cunningham, please come up. Vice pres. Biden your reputation precedes you. Thank you. Good afternoon, mr. Vice president , and thank you for joining us here today. You know the reason kenosha is in the spotlight right out is because of the shooting of jacob blake. I will never forget that sunday afternoon. I was watching a live video of someone who was on the scene and trying to figure out what was going on. I was reading the comments and i saw people commenting about the fact jacob blake had been shot by officers. Then, i saw the video of the actual incident. I dont even think i have the words to describe how i felt when i saw that video. I do remember texting my group of friends and saying this is really bad. This is really bad. Theres going to be protests, theres going to be rioting. I knew that right away after watching that video. My mom called me. I have a 20yearold black man for a son. My mom called me shortly after the news got out about what happened because she knows we live in kenosha and her first thought was is sean ok . Is he all right . I knew he was ok because i knew he was at work. Mr. Vice president im speaking into the mr. President part mr. Vice president , as an attorney i know legally why a lot of officers who kill black men and women are not held legally responsible, criminally legally responsible for their actions, because the law protects them. I recognize that and i know that. I dont agree with it but i recognize that and i know that. I hope that if and when you are elected president , that that is something your administration chooses to try to address because i feel like the law protects a lot of Police Officers. I know a lot of those laws are at the state level, but if at the federal level something can be done to incentivize states to not give so much Legal Protection to Police Officers who kill black men and women. I also want to talk as an attorney, i have my own law firm. Part of my practice is doing criminal defense work. Im also a former prosecutor out of milwaukee. I have been on both sides of the aisle. What ive seen in the criminal courts is unfair treatment between white defendants versus black and brown defendants. Theres over policing in our communities. You have black and brown people who are picked up for a lot of times what could be minor things. Then, they have a criminal record. Then, that criminal record means they have a stamp on their back that makes it difficult for them to get jobs and, more likely, to stay involved in the criminal Justice System so then you get a resume that gets built. I would love to see legislation put in place to try to address some of the over policing in communities. I would also like to see some transparency in policing and prosecution and sentencing. Because i sit in courts, well, i used to before covid, but sit in courts all day and listen to cases and see whats going on, im able to see the differential treatment in charging and offers that are given by the prosecution and in sentencing that is given by judges. Anybody whos not in court every day wont see that. And, that data is not readily available. I would love to see a nationwide effort put in place that requires police departments, district attorneys offices, and also courts to collect the data about arrests, about charges, about sentencing, about offers that are given so that the light can be shown for people who dont sit in court all day to see that we are not just talking, there really is a discrepancy. I think thats the first step that needs to be taken in order to make a difference. Then, once we know what the actual numbers are, start putting some legislation in place to address some of those discrepancies. Thank you for your listening today. Tim thank you to our four speakers. Mr. Vice president , would you like to take a few moments to respond and chat with the community . Vice pres. Biden first of all, thank you for giving me the opportunity. I hope i dont know how much time you have after i say a few words, we will hear from more of you as well. Let me respond to the little bit i have heard so far. First of all, i can make a generic point. The words of a president matter. No matter good, bad or indifferent, they matter. No matter how competent or incompetent a president is, they can send a nation to war, they can make peace, they can make markets rise and fall. They can do things that i have observed that can make a difference just by what they say. You know, i got out of law school and i moved back to delaware. I had a partial scholarship. We didnt have a law school in delaware. I went to syracuse law school. When i came home from law school, what happened was my last semester the only two political heroes i had both were assassinated. Dr. King and bobby kennedy. Kennedy was assassinated the day i graduated. I came home and my city was the only city in the United States of america occupied by the military since reconstruction for 10 months. Every single corner, a military person was standing for 10 months. I had a job with a good law firm. One of the oldest law firms in the state. After a while, i concluded that i was in the wrong place. They were good people, but i quickly became a public defender. I used to have interview my clients and what they call the northeast corridor, where amtrak runs from washington new york. That area goes through my city. And, i used to interview clients down in the basement of that train station before they were arraigned. And here i was we had the eighthlargest black population in the nation. We work to our great shame, a slave state, although we were one of those border states that fought on the side of the north, thank god. To make a long story short, what happened was i thought blacks and whites would be, in my city, with each other again. Here i am 40 years later, on january 17, standing on a platform and that very same train station and looking out over the east side which had been burned to the ground literally. It had been completely leveled. Across the river, the third street bridge, 100 africanamerican community. I was standing on the platform on january 17 waiting for a black man to come 26 miles from philadelphia to pick me up and take me on a train ride to washington, d. C. 10,000 people standing down below cheering. And my son, beau, was alive then. He was the attorney general of the state of delaware at the time. My daughter, whos a social worker. And my middle son, who was running the world food program, the Largest Program in the world. I called them up. It all of a sudden hit me. Here i was in that whole area had been rebuilt. And the third street bridge is still in a little bit of trouble but things have moved. I said, dont tell me things can change. I told them about the story. I guess im violating social distancing here. Sorry. And i said dont tell me things can change. I told a story and reminded them when i was a young attorney. I made a mistake about something. I thought you could defeat hate. Hate only hides. It only hides. And, when someone of authority breathes oxygen under that rock, it legitimizes those folks to come out. Come outside of the rock. I had not planned on running for anything again after my son had died. And, i was a professor in college and running another program at another college. Until i saw those people coming out of charlottesville carrying torches, literally torches. I saw them on television. Their veins bulging. Their hatefilled speech. Chanting the same antisemitic bile that was chanted on the streets of germany in the 1930s. On top of that, accompanied by white supremacists, ku klux klan. A young woman was killed protesting those folks. The president of United States was asked what do you think . He said something no president has ever said there are very fine people on both sides. No president has ever said anything like that. The point i am making is its not all his fault, but it legitimizes the dark side of human nature. What it did though, it also exposed what have not been paid enough attention to. The underlying racism that has institutionalized in the United States, it still exists. It has existed for 400 years. So, whats happened is we end up in a circumstance like you had here in kenosha and have here in kenosha. But, i am i had a serious operation years ago. A neurosurgeon gave me a very small chance. I said i will be fine. You know what your problem is, senator . You are a congenital optimist. I think we have reached an Inflection Point in our history. I honest to god believe we have an enormous opportunity. Now that the curtain has been pulled back. To do a lot of really amazing things. People are beginning to see because of covid who the people are breaking their necks and risking their lives. People say that black lives matter has lost some standing after the president has started talking about law order, but over 50 of people still support it. People are beginning to see because of covid who the people are breaking their necks and risking their lives. The definition of a firefighter god made man and then made a couple of firefighters. Youre all crazy, thing thank god. I grew up in a neighborhood, you either became a firefighter or a priest. I was not qualified for either. All kidding aside, think of what happened. Who are all those people . You have over 6000 young dreamers, the hispanic community, who are on the front lines dealing with covid. You have all those folks working in a supermarket stocking the shelves, making five dollars, six dollars, seven dollars an hour. They are mostly minorities, africanamericans, latinos. People are beginning to figure out who we are as a country. This is not who we are. This is not who we are. The first point i want to make you is i am not pessimistic. Im optimistic about the opportunity if we seize it. I will respond to what each of you had to say. Tim, you talked about a lot more about putting money behind the solutions. The country is ready to put the money we had solutions now. Heres what im proposing. 30 poverty rate among africanamericans. You have living wages that dont exist. We are going to nationalize 15 an hour. No one should have to work two jobs just to make it. That is not right in america. Two jobs just to be above the poverty rate, above the Poverty Level . Prison reform, a lot of reforms it takes, but my view is we should take Prison Reform i have been preaching this from prison punishment to reform. For example, anyone who serves time in prison and they get out, they should be entitled to every Single Program that exist. Why dont we want them getting the pell grant and going to school . Why dont we want them going to school and getting Public Housing subsidies . Why dont we want them qualifying for what used to be called food stamps . Right now, years ago, with a senator from pennsylvania, we wrote the Second Chance act. Now we are in a situation where you get out of prison you get a bus ticket and 25. By the way, 93 of everybody 93 out of 100 prisoners in prison are behind a city jail, a county jail, a state jail, not a federal prison. Barack and i were able to reduce the prison population by 38,000 folks. Anyone who gets convicted of a drug crime, not one that is massive selling, but consumption, they shouldnt go to prison. They should go to mandatory rehabilitation. Instead of building more prisons, i have been proposing for some time we build rehabilitation centers. Mandatory. Theyve got to go to mandatory rehab. But, is not part of the record when they get out if they finish it. The point you made, you get a record and it stays with you. Sorry, you cant get the job because you had been the following. Even if it is a misdemeanor. We should not be putting anybody in jail for that. We should find ourselves in a situation where housing right now in the United States of america, we dont have the kind of housing funding we had back in our administration before that, even the republican administrations. No one should have to pay more than 30 of their income to be able to have housing, including people on the street. Thats why i propose a 400 billion to match the increase of available housing in america. By the way, it is not a waste of money. Even the folks on wall street point out that will increase the gdp. Make it grow. People will do better, people will do better. Heart as the devil for an ever your clients who are black to get an entrepreneurial business loan. All the studies show they are just as qualified to be able to succeed as anybody else. Barack and i put together a program, 1. 5 billion that brought 30 billion off the sidelines. We provide that program for the local Small Business association so you can go apply. Guess what . If you get a loan and the private sector says, hey, hes got the government backing him, we will join him or her. We will move that to 150 billion to fundamentally change where we go. Im giving you too much. I can see you are about to stand up. [laughter] Mental Health is a badly needed commodity right now. Thats why in the Affordable Care act, we insist it be treated equally. Theres no difference between a Mental Health problem and a physical health problem. They are both related to your health. They should be both covered. We talked about the whole idea of federal support. We need community clinics. You guys are expected to do everything. Barb, you talked about rebuilding. Lets get something straight protesting is protesting. As my buddy john lewis used to say. None of it justifies looting or burning or anything else. This cannot be tolerated across the board. Regardless of how angry you are, you should be held accountable if you loot or burn, just like anyone else. You talk about the whole issue of one of the things i proposed, to make sure prosecutors are able to if you are a white guy who can afford a lawyer and you are charged with a crime, you are not charged with nine crimes and given nine alternatives. We will put you on probation. And you have no lawyer. Or you have a public defender getting paid half. Public defenders are going to get paid the same amount as prosecutors are going to get paid. Once you get that on your record, you have a real problem. Two people show up for a job and you have that thing you pled to, rather than run the risk of going to jail for five years, you pled. That happens all the time. That is why we have to have the federal department of justice, which is not much of a department of justice right now, go in and look at the methods used by prosecutors, how they deal with sentencing. There is a lot more to say. I have already said too much. There is a lot we are able to do. The public is ready to do these things, i promise you. I promise you. Last piece, education. The idea in the United States of america, your education is determined by your zip code. Title i schools the gap that exists between them and other school districts. They are able to get 15 billion dollars a year to make up for between billion gap them and white school districts. Guess what . We move that to 45 billion a year. I can put every threeyearold, fouryearold and fiveyearold in school. Every Major University in the country has pointed out that increases by 58 , the chances of that child will get through all 12 years of school. We have one School Psychologist for every 1500 kids in america. We know now that about 60 of the childs brain is developed by the time they reach that age. Things that can be identified early can be dealt with. Anxiety. They do not do it now because they cannot pick it up. When you do that, we know the most at risk generation for the first time in American History is the zgeneration. They have the greatest degree of anxiety of any generation. We have also learned, and i will end with this you are getting antsy. Sit down, man. [laughter] it is important. Heres the deal. If you think about it, we finally figured out drug abuse does not cause Mental Health problems. Mental Health Problems because drug abuse. If you do not detect it early and treated, you increase the prospect they are going to be susceptible to what is happening in the community. There is so much we can do. So much we can do. And we can do it just by eliminating the tax cut for the top 1 10 of 1 . It has done nothing to help anybody. 19 corporations making billions of dollars apiece do not pay a single penny in taxes. Im not trying to punish anybody, but everybody should pay their fair share. Heres the deal. I can pay for every single thing i am proposing without raising your taxes. If you make less than 400,000, you will not get a penny taxed and you will get a tax cut if you make under 125,000. It is not that we cannot do it. We have not been willing to do this i will do whatever you tell me, boss. I know when my dad told me to sit down, i sat down. So we are good. What you heard here was strength, experience, and empathy. What we do know, Vice President biden, you and Kamala Harris have the leadership and strength to restore faith and healing in this country. We will continue the community conversations. I am sure you have more to fear from our community. Would you like to come forward and lead us in the next round of conversations . Thank you. My name is portia bennett. I was told to go off this paper, but i cannot. We need the truth. Part of the truth, i was born here, raised here. I have to give you the truth of the people. The truth of the matter is we are heavily angry. Not angry as to where people say they are protesting. There is a difference between a protester and a rioter. A very big difference. We protest to get our voices heard. We protest to show that not just blacks are tired of what is going on. You can see there are blacks, whites, muslims, chinese, hispanics that are out there. We came together to help get this Community Together because we live here and we want it to stay the way we have always had it. The changes we want have to be more in effect. We have heard so many people say, we will give you this and we will give you that. We have yet to see action. You will be let down every single time. I was always raised to go off action and not words. Want our hold peace officers accountable to the same crimes we get held accountable to. If i were that officer, i would be in the Kenosha County jail right now. If i was these officers who commit these crimes, if a medical examiner does their job and rules it a homicide, that is murder. Why are they not being done the same exact way that me or my brothers and sisters are being treated . Why are there more Police Officers in the black neighborhoods than in other neighborhoods . Why are we more targeted than anybody else . We walk somewhere, and automatically, you fit the description. We wear something automatically it is you are a bad person. I am only 31. I have seen enough within these last two years to say, im tired. I am a mother. My oldest is 13 and my twins are nine. I do this because i want their future to be better than what i have right now. My present is not good. But i speak because i want the truth heard and i speak for the people in the city because all of us are here with these people. A lot of people wont tell the truth. I am telling the truth. It is not what a lot of people think it is for us. We want the same exact rights as others. We want to be treated just like everyone else. A lot of us get denied jobs because we mark that box as black or africanamerican. Knowing we are overly qualified for that position. People come in and tear down our houses in our neighborhoods instead of fixing them up and making a better. We are pushed to one side of town. Gentrification has to stop as well. We cannot get there if somebody with a voice cannot put that into effect. That is all we are asking. We want the same treatment. We are not asking, put us above anybody. For so many decades, we have been shown we dont matter. Right now we want someone who is , actually going to show and put their action in. There are a lot of stuff we want done. I see it, i live it. I literally lived directly behind this church. Others who dont see it and live it cannot tell you the truth. They cannot give you the things we are going through as black and brown people. So i am telling you. It is way more that we want done, and it did not just start with jacob. But we want change. We want change. Thank you for coming today and hearing me. [applause] would someone else like to come up and provide insights on kenosha . Alderman kennedy . Thank you, mr. Vice president , for being here, listening. The spotlight has been on our town. We talked about sunday, what happened sunday. I feel like that was years ago. When i am walking out there and talking to my constituents and i am talking to my neighbors and im talking to my friends and family, i hear their pain. The 10th district, the city of kenosha, did not suffer the same destruction that other parts of the city experienced. But like i spoke to senator baldwin, does it hurt in my section of town . There is a pain in my section of town. Mr. Blake was shot two blocks from my house. We speak about how we feel, the despair, the anger, all of those things. I also want to tell you about the humanity coming out of these things. We know that someone came here to take a victory lap. Someone came here to show division. Someone came here not to help us , but the people surrounding the family decided we are not going to show that picture to the world. We are going to show them something different. You saw a block party happen right there where mr. Blake was shot. You saw people celebrating life. You saw kids playing in bounce houses. Use all services being provided to the community you saw services being provided to the community. This was put together in 24hour period. I would love to take credit for it and i didnt. It happened organically. The spirit, that is the spirit of kenosha, and that is the thing that gives me hope. What gives me hope about your presidency, we can stop talking cynicism. When we go out there in that marketplace of voting, we will have a real idea. We will give people i do not want to use the other guys phrase. We will give them hope. That is so important. I am going to need in my district, it is going to be more of those soft skills. Jobs and Economic Development and all the things the other speakers have spoke on, that will help immensely. But to restore faith in the system, that will be very hard, very difficult, to restore faith in the process, that will be very difficult. When we know the man at the top is speaking truth, honest truth, you will make our work in kenosha a lot better. I look forward to that day. Thank you. Would you like to provide any Closing Remarks . Vice President Biden i will just stay seated, make it informal. Porche, you know, the things i talked about here that we have to do did not start going back to eric garner, i cant breathe. I have been proposing these things for a long time. Literally for years. The one thing i think we have to acknowledge, my mom used to have an expression, you want to know me, come walk in my shoes and my. In my shoes a mile even though i have been involved with Civil Rights Movement since i have been a junior in high school, i cannot understand what it is like to walk out the door or send my son out the door or daughter and worry about just because they are black, they may not come back. I cannot really i can intellectually understand it. But i cannot feel it. I just spent an hour or more with the family as i got off the airplane. I had an opportunity to spend some time with jacob on the phone. He is out of icu. We spoke for about 15 minutes. His brother and two sisters, his dad and his mom on the telephone. He talked about how nothing was going to defeat him. How whether he walked again or not, he was not going to give up. We talked about may he raise you up on eagles wings and hold you in the palm of his hand until we meet again. I think they understand that fear does not solve problems. Only hope does. You give up hope, you might as well surrender. There is no real option. As we talked, i listened to his mom. She was on the phone. She was not with jacob. She was in the same location. His dad, his son, his brother, two sisters, and a family lawyer. What i came away with was the overwhelming sense of resilience and optimism that they had about the kind of response they are getting. His mom my wife asked to say a prayer and his mom said a prayer and she said, i am praying for jacob and im praying for the policeman as well. I am praying that things change. If you think a little bit about where we are right now, it has been a terrible, terrible wakeup call that has gotten the rest of the nation to realize that it is a confluence of three things. The covid crisis, we did not have to have over 6 Million People contract covid. If we had just acted. It has been pointed out by the university of columbia law school, two weeks earlier, 51,000 people would be alive. You have to take responsibility if you are a leader, president. Instead of saying i am not responsible, i take no responsibility. I think the country is much more prime to take responsibility because they have now seen what you see. They are not a bright young black woman with two three children that you have to worry about. There are changes that are taking place. One of the problems is that look, this is not about me. It is really not about me. If we have four more years of the exact same thing, only it will impact us for a couple of generations. The public understands that now. I think they are so ready to do so many things. It never registered with them before or they just have seen things they had not seen before. You know, when dr. King, when he said i know that is ancient history, you werent even born i was in grade school. When they took those hoses and dogs to black women heading to andch in their sunday best little kids having the skin ripped off them by highpowered fire hoses he thought he was , putting a stick in the heart of the Civil Rights Movement. Other parts of the country heard about this and they turned on the tv and they saw it. Dr. King said it was the second emancipation. They got the Voting Rights act, they got the civil rights act. It didnt get us all the way there, but they made progress. That young man stood there for eight minutes and 43 seconds watching floyd die, having his face pressed up against that curb, people all around the world said, oh my god, it really happens. You have a man of his size and physicality calling for his mom, it struck a nerve that had not been struck before. It is awful it has to happen. We are at one of those moments. We have this opportunity, if we dont let up, if we dont let up. There is a reason why this administration doesnt want to talk about only wants to talk about dividing the country and about law and order. They dont want to talk about all those people who have died from covid. They dont want to talk about the fact that almost a Million People filed for unemployment and dont have jobs. They dont want to talk about the fact that you have tens of thousands of businesses closing, maybe for good. They do not want to talk about the fact that the Congress Passed legislation to provide money for states to be able to keep firefighters on the job, teachers on the job, First Responders on the job. They do not want to talk about it because they dont want to do it. They do not feel like it is their obligation. If i get elected president , i promise you there will be a National Commission on policing out of the white house, where i will bring everyone to the table, including police chiefs, civil rights activists, naacp, the latino community. We will sit down there and work it out. A significant portion of the police are decent people. But no one, there are a lot of bad folks in every organization. There is not a whole lot of people willing to speak up no matter what outfit you work with. We have to give a chance to change things. There is not a single solitary reason in the world why we should not be in a position that everybody i asked my wife jill im jills husband, actually. [applause] i guess i should cut to the chase here. Were in a situation now where we cannot let up. We cannot let up. Violence of any form is wrong. The idea that this president continues to try to divide us, talks about how there is really good people on both sides, talks in ways that are just absolutely not only incorrect but immoral. Simply wrong. Simply wrong. The one concern, and i understand it, people are going to be so frustrated and say it is not worth it at all, i am not going to vote. A very good friend of mine, i talked to him before he died, john lewis. As john said, the only answer is to vote. It is the only answer. Otherwise, nothing else works in democracy. It doesnt work. The not so good guys win. I understand, i really do have a sense of the frustration. Where i am, i absolutely believe when the United States, when america sets its mind to something, it has never, never, never failed. And we do it together. Never. We have gone through wars and pestilence, plague, we have gone through a lot. We are finally now getting to the point where we will be addressing original sin in this country. 400 years old, it is the original sin, slavery, and all of the vestiges of it. I am not saying in four years i cannot guarantee everything get solved in four years and i guarantee you one thing, it will be a whole heck of a lot better. We will move a lot further down the road. People fear that which is different. Why in gods name dont we teach history in history classes . A black guy invented the light bulb, not a white guy named thomas edison. Black wall street in oklahoma was burned to the ground. We dont teach them. We have to give people facts. Teach them what is out there. The idea i just spent time with a number of nfl players excuse me, basketball players, including steph curry. These folks are making a difference. It is not about fame or glory. They have brothers, fathers who have been beat up, who have been brutalized just because they are africanamericans. They are saying, enough is enough. I think there is a chance for a real awakening here. The point is, i dont think we have any alternative. But to fight. We do not have any alternative but to fight back. We do not have any other alternative but to tell the truth. There are a lot of folks who thought the president has made Great Strides with his law and order strides. Boy, after his convention, we really made inroads. He has not. Not at all. That should give you a little bit of confidence in the american people. They aint buying it. All of the millions and millions of dollars being spent, they are not buying it. But we have got to do more than them not by it. We have to be honest with them and say you have got to step up. You have got to step up. You have got to do a lot more. A lot more. Than you have done because this is the first chance we have had in a generation in my view to deal and cut and other slice off institutional racism toward getting to a place where it changes. The main reason why i am optimistic, because your generation, black, white, asian american, did you ever think you would turn on a tv you are much younger than i am, but did you ever think you would turn on a tv and one to three ads would be biracial couples selling a product . That never wouldve happened in the 1950s, 1960s. Would be birg a product . That never wouldve happened in the 1950s, 1960s, 1970s, 1980s this generation is a , 1990s. Different generation. They are the least prejudiced, the most optimistic, the best educated, the most desirable of change of any generation. We cannot let them down. Those of us who are a lot older, we have got to join them and do it now. Again, i thank you. As i said, i really am optimistic. I promise you, win or lose, im going to go down fighting. Im going to go down fighting for racial equality, equity across the board. We hold these truths to be selfevident that all men and women are created equal, endowed by their creator. That may be what you are birthright was but it is , different actually being treaty equally. Being treated the same. Everything from black mortality rates in pregnancy straight through to Educational Opportunities and everything in between. But the country is ready. If they are not, it does not matter because there are certain things i am not going to change. There are certain things worth losing over. This is something worth losing over. But we are not going to lose. Thank you very much. [applause] those were truly unifying words in a community that needs healing, unification. We will go down fighting with you. We are not going to go down. We are definitely not going down. Let me say one thing if i could. The gentleman in me would be remiss if i did not welcome the dr. Jill biden. [applause] lets welcome dr. Jill biden. [applause] thank you. Welcome to kenosha. Patrick, please come forward. Thank you. Thank you, mr. Biden for coming out. Thank you, pastor barker for holding this Great Community event, this town hall meeting. Thank you to all the speakers that came forward. I want to thank you, mr. Biden, for reminding us how important optimism is. We deal with so much negativity. We deal with so many problems. We need to focus on being positive and dealing with a solution. Like i said, so much has been said. I am thankful grateful to even be invited to this. Lets stand as we get ready to dismiss and pray, father, we thank you once again, i thank you for your grace and your mercy. Your goodness and your kindness. Thank you for allowing us to come together in the spirit of oneness. Thank you for allowing mr. Biden to take time out of his busy schedule. Thank you for allowing us to bring some issues to the table. Father, i pray right now that you take out hatred, that you move our hatred from our community and replace it with love. I pray sincerely and seriously, dear god, that you remind us each and every day that we can be resilient and have tenacity and move forward away from this destruction. Lord god i pray that you allow , this community to heal, kenosha. Kenoshahat you bless that you bring us back together, that you tear down the walls that separate us because of race and other issues. I pray that you open up the channels of communication that much more between your people. Father this is not something , that just started recently. This is something that has been going on for a while. We pray that you once again continue to protect kenosha. Continue to protect wisconsin. Continue to protect this country and also continue to protect this world. We lift up the blake family today. We pray that you touch him miraculously and triumphantly. We pray dear god for his family as they go through this healing process, as they deal with all of these things in the media and the situations with the police department. Father i will not stop there. , i will pray and ask that you touch the Kenosha Police department. For those that are doing a great job that needs to be done in this community. I pray that you touch the hearts of those that they allow racism and bigotry and hatred to come in. We know that some of it is learned behavior. It is unfortunate. We pray that you allow this community to Work Together as so many have said, we need to rebuild. We need to reconstruct. But i pray that we rely on you as our ultimate source of strength. Lord god as we get ready to , leave this place, only dismissals from this place, but your presence. Reside in each of our hearts today and forever more. We give you all the praise, the honor and the glory that you so rightfully deserve and much more. Father i pray as none other than , a servant who stands behind the cross and i pray, dear god, in the name of jesus christ, my lord and my savior. And let everyone say amen. Thank you. This concludes the program. Were going to ask that everyone, please stay where you are. Stage staff will take over. We will take a photo and they will direct traffic. Before we begin that process, i would like to thank pastor barker for hosting us today and dr. Jill biden and Vice President joe biden for being here. We wish you well. We thank you for bringing the Unifying Force to kenosha. This is a community of immigrants, blacks and latinos, germans, polish, italians. We Work Together. We are hurting right now. We know our challenge is to dig deep in our inner soul, to heal our own community. We look forward to your leadership and the leadership of senator Kamala Harris to restore faith in this community and this country. God bless you. [applause] we are going to ask that you come up one at a time. Even easier. Friday, joe biden talks about the pandemics impact on the economy in wilmington, delaware. Live coverage begins at 12 15 p. M. Eastern on cspan. Shamefuls record is a rollcall of the most catastrophic betrayals and blunders in our lifetime. He has spent his entire career on the wrong side of history. Our current president has failed in his most basic duty to the nation. He has failed to protect us. He has failed to protect america. Is my fellow americans, that unforgivable. The first president of the bay between donald trump and former Vice President joe is tuesday, september 29 at 9 00 p. M. Eastern. Watch live coverage on cspan. Watch Live Streaming and ondemand at cspan. Org or listen live on the free cspan radio app. Cspans washington journal. Every day, we are taking your calls live on the air on the news of the day. We will discuss policy issues that impact you. Coming up friday morning, a Bipartisan Policy Center discusses voting systems ahead of election day 2020. Of thehe editor in chief journal of the American Medical Association talks about the u. S. Response to covid19. Watch cspans washington journal live at 7 00 eastern friday morning. Be sure to join the discussion with your phone calls, facebook comments, Text Messages and tweets. Senator lindsey graham, chair of the senate to sherry Committee Senate to sherry Committee Discusses the role of judges. Live coverage
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