Biden Demands America Confront Dark History With Racism at Emmett Till Ceremony: ‘Silence is Complicity’

President Joe Biden challenged the United States to acknowledge its history with race, declaring that ignoring or denying it won’t do anything for the country’s societal growth.

Biden spoke from the White House on Tuesday as he was to sign a proclamation establishing a national monument to honor Emmett Till, the African America teenage whose brutal murder in 1955 prompted the Civil Rights Movement. At one point in his speech, Biden chastised “there are those who seek to ban books, bury history” and decline chances to learn from America’s past with the evils of racism.

While darkness and denialism can hide much, they erase nothing. You can hide, but they erase nothing.

We can’t just choose to learn what we want to know. We have to learn what we should know. We should know about our country. We should know everything, the good, the bad, the truth of who we are as a nation. That’s what great nations do, and we are a great nation. That’s what they do, for only with truth comes healing, justice, repair and another step forward toward forming a more perfect union. We have a hell of a long way to go.

Biden continued to emphasize the virtue of “telling the truth on the full history of our nation,” adding that hate doesn’t go away without being confronted.

“Given a little oxygen by bad people, [hate] comes roaring out again. It’s up to all of us to deal with that,” Biden warned. “It’s up to all of us to stop it. The best way to do that is with the truth. It’s used in a different context, but I think it applies here: Silence is complicity. I will not be silent, nor will you be silent.”

Biden’s speech was preceded by remarks from Vice President Kamala Harris, who called out “those who attempt to teach that enslaved people benefited from slavery.” This marked her ongoing condemnation of Florida’s education curriculum for teaching that Black people “developed skills which, in some instances, could be applied for their personal benefit” while they were slaves.

Watch above via MSNBC.

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