Joe Biden and Kamala Harris sense a powerful desire for change in America. Photo / AP
COMMENT:
If I were a Black American right now, I think I'd hope to be hearing a bit more from presidential candidate Joe Biden and his running mate Kamala Harris on the subject of police reform.
I know the election is little more than eight weeks away and they're determined to let nothing distract Middle America from their primary goal, the defeat of Donald Trump, which is obviously a prerequisite for progress on any front.
And I know polls this week were still giving Biden a 7-10 point lead nationally and a majority in the electoral college on state polling, only slightly down on the margin he has had for most of the year thanks to Trump's pandemic performance.
But that will have surprised commentators who were both appalled and impressed by Trump's Republican Convention last week. Four nights of fear and loathing of Biden, presenting him as a puppet of the Democrat's radical new Congresswomen and soft on violent protest, appears not to have had the desired effect on suburban voters.
Yet you wouldn't get that impression from the way Biden has been on the defensive this week, denying he had not condemned the violence on the fringes of the Black Lives Matter movement. Of course he had condemned it. The charge was false and Trump knew it.
Trump doesn't care so long as it puts his opponent on the defensive. You can understand why Speaker Nancy Pelosi thinks Biden should refuse to go into television debates with him. You can't have a debate with someone who makes things up.
Trump will be pleased this week that Biden has taken the bait and the focus is off the pandemic. The discussion of Black Lives Matter is focused on the looting and burning and damage to federal buildings, not police reform.
The only way to counter those tactics is to take the initiative, be bold and make proposals that he will attack - but at least the debate will be on your terms, your ground, not his. Biden and Harris have been handed a rare moment in history.
This northern summer, hundreds of thousands of Americansmarched in cities across the country in protest at the killing of George Floyd by police in Minneapolis. It wasn't just a day of protest or even a week. It went on and on, like an uprising that was determined to get change this time.
Then, unbelievably, another black man was shot by police. Jacob Blake was shot in the back as he leaned into his car, with his three children watching from the rear seat. Shot in broad daylight in Kenosha, Wisconsin. The incident was recorded on a phone and seen by the world.
NBA teams refused to play that night, as did baseball players and others sickened and furious that it had happened again. They'd done the raised fist, done the "knee" to the national anthem. They no longer had the heart for sport.
From a distance you think this cannot possibly go on. If you are as tragic as me, you sit up half the night watching CNN's coverage of the conventions, ever hopeful a leader will rise to the challenge.
The first night of the Democrats' convention was heavily devoted to Black Lives Matter. Michelle Obama was superb but sadly not a candidate. No actual proposals for police reform were heard from those who are on the Democrat's ticket, Biden and Harris. But at least they acknowledged the need.
For his convention the following week Trump had rounded up every Black Republican in Congress or the White House to testify to his indifference to race. But his only interest in the shootings was the looting and damage they were provoking.
On the final night, a hurricane was bearing down on America's Caribbean coast and in Kenosha two protesters had been shot, reportedly by a young white vigilante. Americans saw phone footage of the young man walking down the street towards approaching police vehicles with a long rifle slung on his back and his arms outstretched.
The big armoured vehicles rumbled past him towards where they'd heard the trouble was. The kid eventually had to knock on the door of a parked police car to get their attention. CNN late night host Don Lemon said what was surely in every viewer's mind: "Imagine if he'd been Black."
Somewhere in his satchel Biden has a policy on police reform. It proposes a national police oversight commission, which sounds like the least America requires. It has 18,000 police agencies, 15,000 at city or county level. There is no standardised training. In 36 states recruits can start work with none.
Kamala Harris told the Democratic Convention she and Biden sense a powerful desire for change in America. They should be leading it.