| During the U.S. vice presidential debate Wednesday night, the current vice president, Mike Pence, took aim at the idea that American institutions don't treat all Americans the same way — the police and the justice system in particular. "This presumption that you hear consistently from Joe Biden and Kamala Harris that America is systematically racist and that, as Joe Biden said, he believes law enforcement has an implicit bias is a great insult to the men and women who serve in law enforcement," Pence said in a response to a question about the near-total exoneration of the police officers who fatally shot Breonna Taylor in her Louisville, Kentucky, home in March. Pence underscored what's become an increasingly popular Republican talking point lately: that American institutions, including the police and the justice system, are great as they are, or at least not as bad as the Democrats say. It's important, because while companies, elected officials and everyday Americans have expressed widespread support for the Black Lives Matter movement, the extent to which the country's institutions decide to tackle the country's significant racial disparities depends on the public's understanding of the problem in the first place.  A demonstration in Louisville, Kentucky, on Sept. 26, 2020. Photographer: Michael M. Santiago/Getty Images It turns out Americans are split. A poll released last month by the UMass Lowell Center for Public Opinion found that a small majority, 51%, believe that Black people are treated less fairly than White people in their interactions with law enforcement. Democrats and Americans under 50 were more likely than Republicans and older Americans to believe in those racial disparities, the poll found. Pence's answer spoke to the party faithful, the latest in a long line of Administration positions that frame the ongoing debate over racism in America as a question of patriotism. Last month, Trump signed an executive order banning military institutions and federal contractors from holding anti-bias training designed to combat sexism and racism in the workplace because, basically, #AllLivesMatter. The President has also repeatedly backed efforts to protect monuments to the Confederate Army and supported aggressive tactics to quell the summer's Black Lives Matter protests. The Biden-Harris ticket has offered a different view. During the debate Wednesday, Harris endorsed the George Floyd protesters in their "fight for the ideals we hold dear" and listed a slew of policy proposals that would limit the use of force by police and reform the criminal justice system. Earlier this week, Biden endorsed an alternative understanding of patriotism, referencing an emotional speech delivered by National Basketball Association coach Doc Rivers after the death of Jacob Blake by a police officer in Kenosha, Wisconsin.
"I think about what it takes for a Black person to love America," Biden said in a speech in Gettysburg. "That is a deep love for this country that has for far too long never been recognized." —Naomi Nix | 
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