Biden’s UN Ambassador Says ‘Slavery Weaved White Supremacy’ Into ‘America’s Founding Documents and Principles’

United Nations Ambassador Ambassador Linda Thomas-Greenfield said in a Wednesday video address she believed slavery had woven white supremacy into America’s “founding documents and principles.”

“I’ve seen for myself how the original sin of slavery weaved white supremacy into our founding documents and principles,” Thomas-Greenfield said in the address, which she delivered to a convention organized by the National Action Network.

Greenfield, who served as ambassador to Liberia under both former Presidents George W. Bush and Barack Obama, noted that she was the descendent of a slave through one of her great grandmother’s parents. But she advised her viewers not to “internalize” wrongdoing, and she said the issue wasn’t limited by geography.

“Racism is not the problem of the person who experiences it,” Greenfield said. “Those of us who experience racism cannot and should not internalize it, despite the impact that it can have on our everyday lives. Racism is the problem of the racist, and it is the problem of the society that produces the racist. And in today’s world, that’s every society.”

She added that she believed white supremacy was the key factor that led police to kill George Floyd and Breonna Taylor last year. She made the remarks in passing as she detailed the Biden administration’s efforts to regain U.S. admission to the U.N. Human Rights Council, which the U.S. left three years ago under the Trump administration. Critics have long taken issue with the council for granting membership to nations that engage in human rights abuses — including China, Russia, and Cuba.

“When we raise issues of equity and justice at the global scale, we have to approach them with humility,” Greenfield said. “We have to acknowledge that we are an imperfect union, and have been since the beginning.”

Watch above via Greenfield’s address to the National Action Network.