[PJ] In a speech at the Minnesota State House on Tuesday, Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-Minn.) called for the "dismantling" of America’s "economy and political system" in an effort to root out "oppression." She insisted that any wealth disparity between blacks and whites is the result of oppression and urged her fellow Democrats to "tear down systems of oppression" in various sectors of American society.Omar began her remarks by attacking Minnesota Republicans for refusing to pass the Democrats’ radical criminal justice reform bill, and then moved on to other claims of "systemic racism."
"We can’t stop at criminal justice reform or policing reform for that matter," Omar said. "We are not merely fighting to tear down the systems of oppression in the criminal justice system, we are fighting to tear down systems of oppression that exist in housing, in education, in health care, in employment, in the air we breathe."
"In America today, white families have 42 percent more wealth than black families," she argued. "We are speaking to the fact that homeownership rates are nearly twice as high for white families than they are for black families."
Omar also argued that "environmental racism is real," claiming that black people suffer worse than white people when a natural disaster hits. She noted that the coronavirus pandemic has done more damage in the black community. "When America gets a cold, black communities get pneumonia," she said. "Because I lost my own father to the coronavirus, I see the pain and the havoc it’s wrecking on black communities in Minneapolis."
Then she delivered the telling lines about "dismantling" the "economic and political system" that is based on "profit."