Anthony Kapel Jones, 52, became an authentic symbol of Joe Biden’s victory over Donald Trump in the American presidential election, after what happened on Saturday, live, when, as on other occasions when he was called to give his comment, went live on CNN television station.
Van Jones, the name he adopted when he was 17, when he worked for the newspaper The Jackson Sun, from the city of Jackson, Tennessee, where he was born, was one of the guests to comment on Biden’s election, but he did not contain his emotion, letting his tears escape while saying, through the simple words of an American father, that tolerance was back in America after Trump’s defeat.
“It was easier to be a father this morning. It is easier to be a father and tell your children that character matters, that truth matters! Being a good person matters”, began by saying Barack Obama’s lawyer and former adviser at the White House, with a choked voice while wiping the tears that were starting to trickle down his face.
Despite the excitement, Van Jones continued without interruption. “It is easier for many people. If you are a Muslim in this country you don’t have to worry about whether the president doesn’t want you here and sends you away for no reason. It is the retribution of many people who have really suffered. Who said ‘I can”t breathe“And it wasn’t just George Floyd, but many other people who couldn’t breathe because people who were once afraid to show their racism were now becoming more and more malicious. You couldn’t go to the mall without someone saying something and with that you spent a lot of energy in your life just to hold on. Now, this is something important just to have the possibility of having some peace and an opportunity to start over. “
Van Jones’ sobbing speech had a huge impact on American society, having been widely shared on social media, and the way it ended exemplifies well how, throughout his life, he defended rights for equality. “The character of the country is important. Being a good man matters. I just want my children to look at this. I’m sorry for the people who lost it, for them it’s not a good day, but for many other people this is a good day”, he stressed.
Kennedy brothers admirer and leftist activist
Van Jones’ education was very religious and focused on the values of American history. As a child he used to accompany his grandfather, leader of the Christian Methodist Episcopal Church, at conferences, during which he sat listening to adults and their accounts of great figures in the history of America.
It was around this time that he learned who John Kennedy, Martin Luther King and Robert Kennedy had been. Above all, he became an admirer of the Kennedy brothers, whose pictures he even pasted on the wall of his room next to the characters in the movie Star Wars.
He graduated in law from Yale University in Connecticut, and in 1992 after the beating of African-American construction worker Rodney King in Los Angeles, he was one of the students chosen by the Human Rights Lawyers Committee to be an observer. protests triggered by the verdict of the trial, which acquitted three of the four police officers who beat King.
The truth is that Van Jones was eventually arrested at the demonstrations, and the charges were later dropped. However, that event profoundly affected the way he came to see the United States, becoming a leftist activist, for a multiracial society and against police violence, the same that has revolted him even more recently, especially since the assassination of George Floyd.
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