A senior Federal Reserve official on Tuesday issued an outright direct condemnation of how black Americans are treated by law enforcement and said if rioters were black in the Capitol building last week, they would not have come out alive.
“If it was black militants, armed militants who stormed the U.S. Capitol, I think they would all be dead by now,” Neel Kashkari, president of the Fed of Minneapolis, said during one of a series of events that the Fed system presented on racism and the economy. “This is the strongest example of racism and inequality in our society.”
Kashkari did not explain what he meant by his remarks. A number of Capitol police officers sustained injuries and defenders lawmakers, associates and journalists from the attack, and one, Brian Sicknick, was killed late Thursday. But there have also been videos showing how a small number of officers pull down barricades for the rioters and in another case stop for a photo with one of them.