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BLACK LIVES MATTER
The SPEAKER pro tempore. The Chair recognizes the gentleman from Texas (Mr. Green) for 5 minutes.
Mr. GREEN of Texas. Madam Speaker, and still I rise, as a liberated Democrat, unbought, unbossed, in the spirit of Shirley Chisholm. And I rise, not as a part-time freedom fighter, but a full-time freedom fighter. I don't do it just because it is convenient, just because it is the issue du jour. I do it because I was born into the struggle. I didn't enlist at a later time in life.
As a full-time freedom fighter, I rise today, Madam Speaker, because Black lives still matter; and they matter, Madam Speaker, wherever they happen to be. They matter, not because they happen to be in the United States. They matter if they are in Haiti. Black lives matter.
I have been to Haiti. I have seen the conditions there. We need to do something about our friends in this hemisphere. And if they matter in Haiti to me, surely they matter at the southern border.
Black lives matter wherever they are. Black lives matter regardless as to who is in power. They still matter. Changes in the power structure don't change the circumstances. And as long as the circumstances exist, Black lives still matter.
And as a 74-year old Black man, when I see men in uniforms, acting under the color of law, on horses, using the reins of the horses to do what was comparable to that which was done when you were trying to capture a runaway slave, or you were herding slaves in a given direction, Black lives matter. When I see that, I find it more than appalling. It is sinful. It is something that we cannot tolerate.
And you just can't say, well, the circumstances are so bad that we have to use horses now to run down Black people. Black lives matter. That kind of behavior is intolerable. And when I see it, I am going to speak up and speak out.
So here is what I am going to do about it. I am not just going to say Black lives matter. I want justice for the Haitians.
I remember when we had a policy to help the Cubans come into this country. By the way, I never opposed it. But the policy was wet foot, dry foot. You get one foot on dry land, your other foot could be in the Gulf of Mexico, and you had the right to take that other foot out of water, go on into Miami and start a life in this country and eventually become a citizen. I never opposed that policy. We didn't have a similar policy for the Haitians.
And I remember when Castro opened up the jails and let the criminals come down to Florida, we didn't send them back.
Black lives matter. It is not just a slogan for me. So here is what I am going to do. I am going to draft a resolution condemning what we saw.
We need to know whether Black lives matter to this Congress. We need to know. I am going to draft a resolution.
And for those who don't understand the rules, these kinds of resolutions are not privileged, so I can't just bring it to the floor and demand a vote. So I am going to ask that it be allowed to come to the floor because Black lives matter.
And we need to vote. We need to know where people stand on the great issues of our time. This is an issue of all time; it is not just today. We need to know where people stand. We need to vote.
There are a lot of things that we need to vote on. We need to know where people stand when it comes to Black lives, and all lives, I might add, but this is the Haitian issue that we are dealing with now.
I have fought for the other persons who have come to the border. I spoke up when little girls were being ripped away from their mothers' arms, so I am not new to this fight.
And I want to assure you that I am going to bring the resolution to my colleagues, and we will find out whether Black lives matter to this Congress.
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SOURCE: Congressional Record Vol. 167, No. 163
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