Raimondo said the state has made some progress in bringing more diversity to the State Police and judicial appointments, but that more needs to be done.
“The tragedies that we’ve seen have to be a wake-up call for all of us — that institutional racism exists throughout our society and we need to do more to deal with it, and eliminate it,” Raimondo said Monday in a conference call with reporters.
Asked if she’s committed to taking any concrete steps to address the concerns raised by demonstrators, the governor said, “We’re committed, I’m committed, to engaging.”
“We have to begin by really listening and engaging,” Raimondo continued. “and not dismissing …. as a white woman of privilege, I don’t know what it is like to be fearful of going for a jog and being discriminated against or attacked just because of the color of my skin …. So people like me have to do a lot more listening with humility before we can commit to specific action.”
The governor said the crowd of more than 1,000 people who gathered at Burnside Park in Providence over the weekend and marched to protest at the Statehouse made her proud to be a Rhode Islander.
While television news footage showed that a number of demonstrators were not observing social distancing and other recommendations related to COVID-19, Raimondo said most protesters practiced the recommended steps.
While a glass door at the Statehouse was vandalized after the protest, and graffiti was left on the Capitol, Raimondo said 99 percent of the demonstrators were peaceful.
She condemned the vandalism and said the people responsible for it will be held accountable. But the governor said the anger and other emotions that have fueled protests across the nation are justified.
In talks over the weekend with African-American faith leaders, Raimondo said, “the thing that keeps coming across is themes of pain – pain and that pain which leads to anger and very legitimate frustration and a call for action. And so all of us, every Rhode Islander, should share in that outrage and channel our outrage into action which brings about change.”
About how the recent riots in other cities point to a lack of underlying change since the disturbances of the late 1960s, the governor said, “The anger that we are seeing is real and warranted because what underpins it is decades of unresolved, unaddressed inequality. Until we get to the business of addressing the economic inequality, the educational inequality, the healthcare inequality, I don’t think that the anger will dissipate because until we do that, it will be warranted.”
Ian Donnis covers politics for The Public’s Radio. He can be reached at idonnis (at) ripr (dot) org
