One day after the House advanced President Biden’s $1.9 trillion COVID-19 relief package, Vice President Kamala Harris championed the proposed round of aid as much needed help for Black Americans, calling the pandemic an “accelerator” for “the fissures and the failures, the defects, the flaws in our system.”
Harris delivered her remarks at a Black History Month Virtual Celebration, hosted by House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer, D-Md. In her keynote address, the vice president cited the ways the pandemic has made things worse for “those for whom things were bad before,” particularly Black Americans, who Harris noted, have been shown to be disproportionately affected by the hardships of the pandemic — from health and deaths to economic struggles.
“We are looking at a country in a situation where more than two in three Black Americans personally know someone who has been hospitalized or who has died from COVID-19. Black women workers are being forced out of the workforce in record numbers, and so many Black small businesses are being forced to close their doors,” Harris said.
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