Pelosi thanks George Floyd for ‘sacrificing your life for justice’

WASHINGTON — House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., joined members of the Congressional Black Caucus outside the Capitol after a Minnesota jury convicted former Minneapolis police officer Derek Chauvin of murder and manslaughter in the death of George Floyd.

“Thank you, George Floyd, for sacrificing your life for justice. For being there to call out to your mom — how heartbreaking was that — call out for your mom, ‘I can’t breathe,'” Pelosi said. Floyd’s name “will always be synonymous with justice,” she said.

However, many people took issue with Pelosi’s phrasing, noting that Floyd did not willingly “sacrifice” his life, but rather was murdered. 

Floyd was killed at the age of 48 when Chauvin kneeled on his neck for more than nine minutes on Memorial Day 2020. 

“I don’t expect anything less of Nancy Pelosi,” tweeted Frederick Joseph, author of The Black Friend: On Being a Better White Person. “Racism is and has always been a spectrum.”

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi speaks about George Floyd as chairwoman of the Congressional Black Caucus, Rep. Joyce Beatty, D-Ohio, right, and other members of the Congressional Black Caucus listen, on Capitol Hill April 20, 2021, after the jury convicted former Minneapolis police officer Derek Chauvin. (Photo: Jose Luis Magana, AP)

Pelosi later tweeted: “George Floyd should be alive today … He did not die in vain. We must make sure other families don’t suffer the same racism, violence & pain.”

Pelosi and other Democrats were previously criticized for wearing kente cloths in June when they announced a police reform bill in Floyd’s name. 

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