During her confirmation hearing, Judge Amy Coney Barrett shared the emotional impact George Floyd death had for herself and family.
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Barrett said the violent death, caught on camera, caused a shared moment of grief between her and her 17-year-old Haitian-born daughter. She revealed the viral video provoked tears in them both when answering a question from Sen. Dick Durbin (D-IL).
“As you might imagine, given that I have two Black children, that was very, very personal for my family,” she said. “We wept together in my room.”
She continued, “my children, to this point in their lives, have had the benefit of growing up in a cocoon where they have not yet experienced hatred or violence. And for Vivian to understand there would be a risk to her brother, or the son she might have one day, of that kind of brutality has been an ongoing conversation. And it’s a difficult one for us like it is for all Americans all over the country.”
As reported by theGrio , former Minneapolis police officer Derek Chauvin posted his $1M bail after being charged with murder in Floyd’s death.
During the hearing, Barrett, 48, a conservative Christian from a Catholic family who is President Donald Trump’s nominee to the Supreme Court, also revealed her stance on systemic racism in the United States.
“I think it is an entirely uncontroversial and obvious statement given, as we just talked about, the George Floyd video, that racism persists in our country,” Barrett said.
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“As to putting my finger on the nature of the problem whether…it’s just outright or systemic racism, or how to tackle the issue of making it better, those things are policy questions. They’re hotly contested policy questions that have been in the news and discussed all summer. So while, as I did share my personal experience, I’m very happy to discuss the reaction our family had to the George Floyd video, giving broader statements or making broader diagnoses about the problem of racism is beyond what I’m capable of doing as a judge.”
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