Symone Sanders on Biden’s Plans to Address Racial Inequality

CHRISTIANE AMANPOUR: Because yesterday when the vice president went into the church and when he had his meetings, he was confronted by people who said, yes, Joe, we support you, but we need to push you. It is not just good enough to not be Trump. We need you to show that there’s more you can do than even the stuff that wasn’t done under the first black president in America, Barack Obama, when you were his vice president. There’s a lot to be done and there’s a lot of promise that the people have not been able to see fulfilled.

SYMONE SANDERS, SENIOR ADVISER, BIDEN CAMPAIGN: Look, these are intersectional issues. Again, I just want to remind folks, I think this — the fact that all of these issues are compounding, that we have the unrest in America on top of the coronavirus pandemic that has created both a public health crisis and an economic crisis. An economic crisis, frankly, that is tracking to be worse than the great depression, there is real unrest here. I mean, in the — Vice President Biden gave his speech today in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, at the heart and the founding of the democracy of America, just a couple miles up the road from where he was, the average income of folks in North Philadelphia is $9,783 a year. So, there is some deep, deep, deep economic hurt there that is contributing to, again, a number of things we see. So, the answer to that and that Vice President Biden has put forth is that we have to — yes, we have to address criminal justice reform issues and those are things that he spoke to today and will continue to speak to, but we have a public health crisis. We have to address inequities in our public health system. Under his plan for Biden Care does that. We also have to address, though, the inequities that exist that have crippled communities from being able to create and build wealth. So, under Vice President Biden’s plan for black America, he has put forth a well creation agenda that speaks to creating more home ownership, that speaks to small business. It speaks to closing and helping closing that wealth gap particularly in communities of color, specifically as he speaks to the African-American community. So, there are real policy prescriptions that can be applied here. And this plan that Vice President Biden has put forth and the plans, I would point folks to his housing plan, his health care plan, also our climate plan because environmental justice hits the most vulnerable communities and people of color first and worst as we have seen throughout history, these plans are foundational for how Vide President Biden will govern. These are not just platitudes. These are actionable policies that he intends to act on when he is elected president.