Texas Lieutenant Governor Dan Patrick (R) is speaking out about racism in the U.S. while predicting when he thinks it will end.
During an interview on Fox News on Wednesday evening, Patrick admitted that George Floyd’s death and the subsequent unrest that has erupted across the country is heartbreaking to him.
“We have racism in this country, Shannon,” Patrick said. “But it’s really an issue of love. It’s loving God. If you cannot love your fellow man, if you don’t love God, and we have a country where we’ve been working really hard, particularly on the left, to kick God out.”
As protests continued into Wednesday night, Patrick went on to acknowledge the existence of racism in the country, insisting a real character and cultural changes will be required to effectively address racism.
He continued, “We need a culture change to address this racism. You cannot change the culture of a country until you change the character of mankind.”
See Patrick’s remarks at the 14:25 mark:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XEGXyxaXRKU
The Texas Republican weighed in on the death of George Floyd as he insisted that it was a “crime against all black America” and “humanity.”
“The crime against George Floyd, in my view, was a crime against all black America and against humanity and we’re coming together,” Patrick said.
Patrick also offered his take on law enforcement in America. While he did admit there are extraordinary officers on police forces across the country, he also acknowledged that there are more officers like former Minneapolis police officer Derek Chauvin.
“This guy [former Minneapolis officer Derek Chauvin] has a bad record [from] before, still should not have been a police officer,” Patrick said. “But we have 700,000 police officers, men, and women. And they are extraordinary, for the most part.”
Patrick also argues that God has been “left out of the equation” and the country will not heal until it re-centers its focus, putting God and love first.
Patrick later added, “We’ve got a lot of healing to do and we can’t do it unless we turn to God and we need to do that now more than ever.”
Protests are continuing in cities across the United States.