News from Washington  » Rep. Adam SCHIFF

Our fellow Americans cannot breathe. Protestors are taking to the streets in Glendale, Los Angeles and cities across America to demand justice and demand that the dignity and humanity of Black Americans be recognized. These protests are born out of real pain – pain that we as a society have allowed to grow because generations of Black Americans have lived for their entire lives with the legitimate fear and reality of police brutality.

Throughout the course of our nation’s history, we have fought racism through a bloody civil war, a civil rights movement, generations of peaceful protest and progressive legislation. We have made progress but only haltingly and at great cost.

For racism is always with us. And in Minneapolis on May 25, when a police officer put his knee on the neck of George Floyd and kept it there for eight minutes and 46 seconds, racism was at the heart of that murderous depravity.

The crushing reality of racism is, tragically, everywhere – in large cities and small towns, in hospitals and in schools, in the justice system and in the economic system. And racism persists in part because we can never fully understand what it is like to stand in someone else’s shoes. I can never fully understand what it means to be stopped while walking down the street, or while driving, or while in a store, just because of the color of my skin. I can never fully understand what it means to have a talk with my child about how to survive a police encounter.

I recently participated in a multi-faith virtual forum with All Saints Church, IKAR and MPAC. During the event, Rabbi Sharon Brous shared a story of the differing life experiences of Black and White Americans: A white mother said to her child that if he got lost and saw a police officer, that was a safe person to ask for help. A black mother said to her child that if he got lost and saw a police officer coming, he should hide as fast as he can.

These are the contrasting experiences of our fellow Americans. We see each other but dimly, even with both eyes open. And yet we must try. We must not turn away. We must acknowledge our own implicit biases. And we must use our voices to lift up rather than divide.

For more than two decades I have been a legislator. I believe in the power of corrective action through collective action, in the ability of the law to address injustice and the courts to effectuate it. I believe in the power of oversight in Congress, in our state legislatures, through police commissions and through public inquiry and protest.

Many Americans, including those who cannot breathe and live in fear of the police, do not see these levers of power as protecting them or even representing them. And rightly so. The same levers that can be used for good can and have been used to oppress. That must change.

And Congress must change, too. Congress must listen, hear and act.

Led by our colleagues in the Congressional Black Caucus, including California’s Senator Kamala Harris and Congress-woman Karen Bass, we just introduced a bold, unprecedented police accountability bill, the Justice in Policing Act. This bill will hold police officers and departments accountable and increase transparency, make structural changes to our justice system, ban chokeholds and eliminate qualified immunity, which helps protect bad actors, and much more.

We must reimagine policing in our country and this is just the start. Much work remains to be done – especially at the state and local levels – but I am proud to support this bill as a critical first step.

We can and must do better for those suffocating on our streets, whether under the knee of a racist cop or from a system that has perpetuated inequality and injustice. And we must do so with a sense of urgency. Because Black Lives Matter.

  Rep. Adam Schiff