‘We Are Heavily Angry’: BLM Activist Speaks Out About Racial Injustice During Biden Event: ‘I Was Told To Go Off This Paper But I Can’t’
Black Lives Matter Kenosha activist Porsche Bennett spoke out about racial injustice during an event with Joe Biden on Thursday, telling the Democratic presidential nominee that he “needs the truth” and that “I was told to go off this paper, but I can’t.”
Biden was visiting Kenosha in the wake of the recent protests and unrest after a police officer shot Jacob Blake in the back seven times as he was holding onto his shirt. Biden met the Blake family on Thursday and spoke via phone with Blake himself, who is still in the hospital where he is recovering from his injuries that have paralyzed him from the waist down.
At a community event at Grace Lutheran Church, numerous public officials and activists gathered to speak with Biden about the racial injustice in the country. When it was Bennett’s turn, she approached the microphone and quietly introduced herself and then calmly declared she was going to go off-script and spoke at length about her distrust and anger.
“I’m just going to be honest, Mr. Biden, I was told to go off this paper, but I can’t,” Bennett said holding up a small piece of paper. “You need the truth and I’m part of the truth.”
“Sure,” Biden said in response.
Washington Post columnist Jonathan Capehart followed up with Bennett about her comments on the note in her hand that she referenced as she began to address Biden. She clarified that the script came from her organization, Black Lives Matter Kenosha, and not anyone from the Biden campaign.
BREAKING…..Just spoke with Porsche Bennett, the young woman who said at @JoeBiden Kenosha event, “I was supposed to read off this paper, but I can’t. I need to tell you the truth.” 1/3
— Jonathan Capehart (@CapehartJ) September 3, 2020
Bennett said the paper she had was given to her by her organization. The name of the group is Black Lives Activists Kenosha (BLAK) and Bennett is an organizer. Here’s what she told me about that paper and why she went off-script. 2/3
— Jonathan Capehart (@CapehartJ) September 3, 2020
“It was just little specific demands that we wanted put out there…but I felt like much more was needed to be said. So I didn’t go off our demands strictly on the paper. I spoke straight from my heart…He needed to hear more of what was from our hearts,” Bennett told me. 3/3
— Jonathan Capehart (@CapehartJ) September 3, 2020
“I have to give you the truth of the people. The truth of the matter is, we are heavily angry. Not angry as to where people say ‘Oh they are protesting.’ There is a difference between a protester and a rioter, a very big difference. We protest to get our voices heard, we protest to show that not just blacks are tired of what is going on. As you can see there’s blacks, whites, Muslims, Chinese, Hispanic out there. We came together to help get this community together because we live here and we want it to stay the way we have always had it.”
“But the changes that we want has to be more, in effect,” Bennett added. We have heard so many people say: ‘We will give you this and we will give you that.’ We have yet to see action. And I was always raised to go off action and not words, because will be let down every single time. And the action we want is hold these officers accountable to the same crimes that we’d be accountable to.”
She then called out disproportionate police deployment and targeting in poor and black neighborhoods.
“I am only 31. I have seen enough within these last two years to say: ‘I’m tired,'” she said. “I am a mother. My oldest is 13 and my twins are nine. I do this because I want their future to be better than what I have right now. my present is not good. I want the truth heard.”
“That is all we are asking. we want the same treatment,” she emphasized. “We are not asking, put us above anybody. for so many decades, we have been shown we don’t matter.”
Watch the video above, via C-Span.
Update, 10:10 p.m. EDT: This story has been updated to include more details about the note Bennett was “told” to read from in her comments to Biden.
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