George W Bush: George Floyd's Death Means It's Time To Listen, Not Lecture
Former President George W Bush released a statement Tuesday about the police killing of George Floyd but emphasised it wasn’t his place to say how the country should handle its systemic racism problem.
Instead, he said, it was time for Americans to recognise “the repeated violation” of the rights of Black Americans who didn’t get “an urgent and adequate response from American institutions” in a statement posted on the George W Bush Presidential Center website.
“Laura and I are anguished by the brutal suffocation of George Floyd and disturbed by the injustice and fear that suffocate our country. Yet we have resisted the urge to speak out, because this is not the time for us to lecture. It is time for us to listen.
“It is time for America to examine our tragic failures ― and as we do, we will also see some of our redeeming strengths.”
The 43rd president noted that “it remains a shocking failure that many African Americans, especially young African American men, are harassed and threatened in their own country.”
Bush is the second president, after an essay Monday by Barack Obama, to speak out about Floyd, 46, a Black man who died last week after a white Minneapolis police officer, Derek Chauvin, knelt on his neck for nearly nine minutes while Floyd was handcuffed on the ground. Video of the arrest, over a suspected counterfeit $20 bill, shows Floyd repeatedly telling officers he couldn’t breathe. His death has ignited protests and unrest across the nation over racial injustice and police brutality.
Bush, in his statement, added that peaceful protests, when protected by responsible law enforcement, “make for a better future.”
But then Bush, who The New York Times noted never made any public statements against police brutality during his two terms in office, then said that Floyd’s death ― one of “a long series of similar tragedies” — raises the long-overdue question of how does America end its systemic racism:
“The only way...
