The vice president is flipping between backing his boss’ tough talk and articulating a more conciliatory approach to the protests sweeping the nation.
As protests unfolded over the latest police killing of a middle-aged black man, an African American bishop asked Mike Pence a simple question: How can you personally reunite a racially splintered nation?
Pence, a devout Christian of the born-again stripe, calmly replied that he would orient the country toward God and away from “voices of division” demanding transformational change — or, in his words, talking “too much” about systemic racism. “The faith community, I believe, has before and can again pay an enormously important role in healing the divide in our country,” Pence said to the clergy and congregants seated around him. What doesn’t help, he volunteered, is “this talk of institutional bias, or racism, within law enforcement.”
“It’s a challenging time to be in law enforcement, but I would tell you that Donald Trump and I know and believe that the men and women of law enforcement — our white officers, our African American officers, our Hispanic, Latino and Asian officers — they’re the best of us and we ought to set aside this talk … about institutional racism and institutional bias,” Pence advised. Continue reading.