June 25, 2020 - Issue: Vol. 166, No. 117 — Daily Edition116th Congress (2019 - 2020) - 2nd Session

[Page H2427]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]





  AMERICANS MARCHED TO DEFEND OUR FOUNDING PROMISE OF EQUALITY FOR ALL

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. The Chair recognizes the gentleman from 
Illinois (Mr. Casten) for 5 minutes.
  Mr. CASTEN of Illinois. Mr. Speaker, I rise in support of the George 
Floyd Justice in Policing Act.
  In the weeks since Mr. Floyd's murder, over 25 million Americans have 
marched to defend our founding promise of equality for all.
  Mr. Speaker, I thank all those who marched. Their demands for 
equality have made today possible. I am proud to be a citizen of a 
country where so many of my fellow citizens are forcing that arc of 
history to bend a little faster towards justice.
  Mr. Speaker, I also want to thank them all for reminding us of how 
far we still have to go.
  No justice, no peace; because a country founded on the rule of law 
cannot guarantee peace if that law does not apply equally to all.
  Black lives matter; because we still live in a country where the 
health, wealth, and social disparities between the races make equality 
anything but a self-evident truth.
  Say their names; because the victims, they are not just Black bodies. 
They were human beings with families and dreams, talents, and flaws.
  In a truly colorblind world, the only thing that all these victims 
would have in common, really in common, is that they shouldn't be dead.
  We are not going to end systemic racism today, but we do have the 
opportunity to correct just a few of our sins, the opportunity to end 
chokeholds, the opportunity to end no-knock warrants, to make lynching 
a Federal crime--can you believe we haven't done that yet?--the 
opportunity to hold police departments to the same standards of 
equality and fair play that all other employers do.
  Mr. Speaker, I implore my colleagues on both sides of the aisle, 
please, please, please vote ``yes'' on this bill, not because it means 
our work is done, not because it means that we are going to end 
systemic racism, not because what needs to be done is synonymous with a 
bill that can pass this body in the Senate and get the President's 
signature.
  Vote ``yes'' on this bill so that you can tell your children that 
George and Breonna and Tamir--Tamir Rice, who would have turned 18 
today--and Trayvon, and Amadou, and Ahmaud, and Emmett, and so many 
others, vote ``yes'' so that you can tell your children that they did 
not die in vain.

                          ____________________