By DAVID NAHAN/Sentinel staff
With protests and rioting across the nation over the weekend, hitting as close as Atlantic City and Philadelphia in the wake of the Minneapolis death of George Floyd at the hands of police, New Jersey Gov. Phil Murphy focused his attention on the pervasive racism that has led to the unrest.
He did not focus on some of the looting and burning of businesses and police cars that has followed the protests. Murphy said he wanted to lift up the many peaceful protests “calling attention to the systemic racism in our society. I support these peaceful protests.”
White Minneapolis police officer Derek Chauvin was charged Friday with third-degree murder and second-degree manslaughter after a video caught him kneeling on Floyd’s neck for nearly nine minutes a week earlier as Floyd, a black man, was being arrested after allegedly using a fake $20 bill.
“I know the pain associated with this movement is real and representative of a society that has not been responsive to calls for justice,” Murphy said at the start of his regular press conference updating the state’s COVID-19 status.
He called this “a transformational moment. Protest is the language of the unheard, of the ignored.” He repeated Floyd’s name along with that of a young black man Ahmaud Arbery, who was killed by two white men as he jogged along a street in Georgia because they suspected him of burglary, and that of Breonna Taylor, an unarmed black woman who was killed by police in her own apartment.
“Black lives matter,” Murphy said, repeating a call to action that turned into an activist movement in 2013 to fight violence and systemic racism toward black people.
He said people who have privilege must recognize the pain of those without.
He watched the chief of police in Camden kneel down with protesters in Camden and peaceful protests in Newark that included people of different races.
“The fact that so many came forward in peace and common ground is a powerful reminder of the black and brown experience” and it is important “so many others joined them.”
He said he was moved to see communities throughout the state step up.
He added that his administration has been a leader, “but we know our work is far from over.”
“We will continue to listen and to stand in solidarity,” Murphy said. “The pain of yesterday and the pain of today does not have to be the pain of tomorrow. The insidious effects of racism are not new to us. Racism exists here.” Racism, he said, has held back generations of black and brown citizens and threatens generations to come.
He said that it has affected them in housing, health care and educational opportunities, noting the state’s own number of people affected by COVID-19 shows a disproportionate number of black and Latino citizens have been harmed by the virus.
“All across the country people are demanding transformational change in way we haven’t seen in 30 years. We must listen and we must act,” Murphy said. The unity displayed in New Jersey “shows we are the ones who can lead the way to fight racism and the stain” it has left on the state and the nation.
Pointing to some of the young people of color in his administration who “are living the dreams of their fathers and mothers,” he said “it is our collective job to make sure we don’t limit the extraordinary futures for them and the millions like them in our state and our country.”