White supremacy is woven “into our founding documents and principles,” President Joe Biden’s ambassador to the United Nations said on Wednesday.
The United States needs to practice “humility” when it comes to promoting “equity and justice” on the international stage, Ambassador Linda Thomas-Greenfield said after mentioning the administration’s intention to rejoin the U.N. Human Rights Council.
“Of course, when we raise issues of equity and justice at the global scale, we have to approach them with humility,” she told the National Action Network in a Wednesday speech. “We have to acknowledge that we are an imperfect union and have been since the beginning, and every day we strive to make ourselves more perfect and more just.”
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“I grew up in the segregated South. I was bused to a segregated school. On weekends, the Klan burned crosses on lawns in our neighborhood,” she said.
She continued: “I’ve seen for myself how the original sin of slavery weaved white supremacy into our founding documents and principles.”
Thomas-Greenfield also argued that it was white supremacy that led to the deaths of George Floyd, Breonna Taylor, and Ahmaud Arbery, all three of whom were black.
Biden’s UN ambassador, Linda Thomas-Greenfield, tells the National Action Network that if America’s going to join the UN’s Human Rights Council, we must acknowledge our own failures: “White supremacy is weaved into our founding documents and principles” pic.twitter.com/bYc5SyWkE1
— Tom Elliott (@tomselliott) April 14, 2021
Thomas-Greenfield was sworn in to her post on Feb. 24. On Feb. 8, the Biden administration announced its intention to reengage with the U.N. Human Rights Council. Members include China and Russia, two nations that have received criticism for various human rights abuses.
China warned the U.S. in November 2020 that it needed to work to eliminate “systemic racism,” “police brutality,” and “religious intolerance.” Russia told the U.S. that it needed to “guarantee freedom of expression in the media” and “ensure full-fledged realization of voting rights by American citizens.”
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“The [U.N.] Human Rights Council is flawed and needs reform, but walking away won’t fix it,” Secretary of State Antony Blinken said in a tweet. “The best way to improve the Council, so it can achieve its potential, is through robust and principled U.S. leadership. Under [President] Biden, we are reengaging and ready to lead.”
The @UN Human Rights Council is flawed and needs reform, but walking away won’t fix it. The best way to improve the Council, so it can achieve its potential, is through robust and principled U.S. leadership. Under @POTUS Biden, we are reengaging and ready to lead.
— Secretary Antony Blinken (@SecBlinken) February 8, 2021
