Doc Rivers opens racial debate on riots 0:59
(CNN) -
If there was any doubt about the urgency of President Joe Biden's mission to address racial inequality, it was erased in that scorching moment when an insurrectionary agitator blatantly displayed the Confederate flag for the US Capitol.
Just 20 days away from one of the most shocking moments in modern American history, Biden will make his most detailed political moves to date on the issue on Tuesday with a series of presidential decrees on the only crisis looming over his presidency that it will surely endure once the covid-19 and financial penalties are just a horrible memory.
ANALYSIS |
Biden's authority is already on trial in the first full week of his presidency
He will anticipate the looming shadow of his predecessor Donald Trump after House Democrats filed an impeachment charge on Monday related to his role in inciting unrest on Capitol Hill.
The uprising, incited by a former president who fueled white nationalism, underscored how America's oldest dividing line is also one of the most recent after last summer's national racial reckoning.
However, subsequent events have also left the feeling that while the country has rarely been more divided since the Civil War that was fought over slavery, progress is possible and as necessary as ever.
In another prominent image, on Monday, for example, South Asia's first black female vice president, Kamala Harris, swore in the first black defense secretary, Lloyd Austin.
The two episodes juxtaposed less than three weeks apart encapsulate the deep divisions of the nation that Biden must confront, but also the potential for democracy change.
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The president has chosen the most diverse cabinet in American history.
He has instructed his appointees in the Department of Justice to prioritize civil rights and eradicate racism and prejudice to enforce equality before the law for all Americans.
This is certainly sincere.
But it is also a smart political position, since he owes his victory in the race for the Democratic nominations, his triumph over Trump and his party's seizure of the Senate to black voters especially.
'A moving moment'
Biden has worked hard to cope with the moment, after several awkward or jarring comments related to race early in his long political career.
During a campaign visit to Kenosha, Wisconsin, Biden argued that the national tide of excitement that followed another police shooting of a black man, which left Jacob Blake paralyzed, was the catalyst for a new effort to address all forms of racism and inequality of opportunity.
He also indicated an understanding of the spirit of the racial justice movement's resurgence by acknowledging that white Americans could never fully appreciate the historical pain felt by their black compatriots, an experience shared by many other citizens.
"I can't understand what it's like to walk out the door or let my son or daughter walk out the door and worry that they might not come back just because they are black," Biden said.
Lofty words and symbolism are important: They are part of a president's arsenal to mobilize the public and bring about political change.
But alone, they cannot transform a country or the reality lived by American blacks.
The limited social mobility of millions and the broken promises of many previous "conversations about race" sometimes seem to have changed little from the reality outlined by Martin Luther King Jr. in his book "Where do we go from here: Chaos or Community »(Where do we go from here? Chaos or community), which was first published in 1967.
Biden to CNN: Trump's impeachment 'has to happen'
"Loose and easy language about equality, resounding resolutions about brotherhood fall pleasantly on the ear, but for the Negro there is a credibility gap that he cannot ignore," King wrote.
In a more recent lesson, the presidency of the first black commander-in-chief, Barack Obama, shows that the mere act of breaking down barriers that at the time may seem period and irreversible can incite new prejudice and generate extremism.
Biden's plan
Biden's effort will require action from the Justice Department to address civil rights abuses and ensure fairness in the court system.
Former national security adviser Susan Rice has a new job at the White House, heading the National Policy Council, which includes racial equity among her broad menu of responsibilities.
On Tuesday, Biden will sign orders establishing a commission on the police, in part in response to the death of George Floyd, the Minnesota man who died after an officer pressed his knee to his neck last year.
He is also expected to order improvements in prison conditions and order the Department of Housing and Urban Development to promote fair housing policies.
Last week, in the early hours of his presidency, Biden signed an executive order requiring all government departments to put racial and other equality at the center of everything they do during his tenure.
One established that "promoting equity for all, including people of color and other historically underserved and marginalized people, is the responsibility of our entire government."
Biden also struck down an earlier decree signed by Trump.
Like much of the Biden presidency, his ability to act and secure the huge funding that serious reform requires will be limited by narrow majorities in Congress and Washington's fractured political scene in the post-Trump era.
But he has the moral authority to have won office against a president who widened the nation's racial gulf with a hard-line "law and order" campaign based on false claims that the Democratic candidate wanted to dismantle the current police force.
Biden in the middle
Like many other issues, the debate over what Biden has called "systemic" racism in the criminal justice system places the president between two absolutist positions.
He is confronted on his right by conservatives eager to label him an anti-police demagogue and an enemy of white-hearted values.
Conservative media have already accused Biden of wrongly equating all Trump voters with white nationalists and racists.
And many Republicans now seek to establish a false equivalence between the Trump-inspired violence on January 6 in Washington and the clashes that erupted during the Black Lives Matter protests last year.
Biden has condemned the violence in all cases.
And the violence that erupted in the summer in many cities was not the true expression of the attitude of millions of people who marched to protest against racial injustice.
The attack on the Capitol represented an unprecedented assault on another branch of government by a US president attempting to steal an election.
To his left, Biden is up against progressives who want radical reform, some of whom defined the term "withdrawing funding from the police" that many party leaders said partly cost Democrats' victories in some state races. key in the House.
This particular problem also places Biden between two versions of his own political personality.
He was severely criticized for his role in criminal justice legislation of the 1990s that introduced mandatory minimum sentences that sent many young black men to jail for years.
But he has also always had a strong relationship with the police and their unions during his long political career.
But the shocking events of last summer and the long litany of videotaped examples of police brutality against Black Americans have irrevocably changed the potency of police and race-related issues in the Democratic Party.
And Biden's position, while obviously sincere, is also reinforced by political reality.
Yet some of Biden's longtime police contacts have told CNN that his experience and familiarity with both sides of this difficult issue may uniquely equip him to oversee a political response that somehow reconciles the protests. extraordinary and multiracial nationals after Floyd's death.
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