Elections

Garner Daughter Endorses Bernie Sanders

Jeremy Beale Contributor
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The eldest daughter of the late Eric Gardner endorsed Democratic candidate [crscore]Bernie Sanders[/crscore] Friday morning in a Washington Post opinion article.

“Black Americans — all Americans — need a leader with a record that speaks for itself. And to me, it’s clear. Of all the presidential candidates, Sen. Bernie Sanders is our strongest ally,” Erica Garner, who is also a Black Lives Matter activist, said.

Approximately a year and a half after the death of her father, Erica Garner continues to mourn his death and said that Sanders “heard us” after activists confronted him at a rally.

“If our lives really mattered, we’d have equal access to decent jobs, good schools and affordable housing — if our lives mattered in this country, we’d have equal access to clean air, clean water and real investment in black neighborhoods,” she wrote. “If black lives mattered in America, those who routinely brutalize us wouldn’t be the ones paid, with our tax dollars, to keep us safe.”

According to Garner, the political establishment abandoned her and explained away the injustice of her father’s death.

“I trusted the system; then I watched as politicians on both sides of the aisle — from Chicago’s Democratic Mayor Rahm Emanuel to Michigan’s Republican Gov. Rick Snyder — disregard the will of the people they were elected to represent and abdicate their responsibility to protect them,” she said. “I’ve watched as our system criminalizes blackness while allowing Wall Street to bilk the American people with impunity.”

Eric Garner, arrested for selling loose, untaxed cigarettes, July 14, 2014, died during his arrest, after New York Police Department officer Daniel Panteleo placed him in a chokehold and wrestled him to the ground, stating he resisted arrest.

Panteleo was not indicted for his death.