Congressional candidates differ on social justice issues

Utah congressional candidates Blake Moore (left) and Darren Parry (right) discussed issues relating to social justice, police reform and the Black Lives Matter movement during a recent televised debate.

SALT LAKE CITY – Despite their agreement on many issues, the thinking of the two candidates to replace U.S. Rep. Rob Bishop in Congress is far apart on the civil unrest plaguing some American cities.

Republican candidate Blake Moore of Salt Lake City calls the events that have sparked that unrest — including the deaths of George Floyd in Minneapolis and Breonna Taylor in Louisville — tragedies, but says that America should focus on the root causes of those incidents rather than abolishing or defunding police departments.

“If we want to fix the racial injustices in this country,” counters Democratic candidate Darren Parry of Providence, “we have to make a concerted effort to give marginalized groups a seat at the table and a voice that we really listen to.

“We all have racial biases in some way or another. But we really need to listen to each other. We need to acknowledge past wrongs.”

The rival candidates discussed issues relating to social justice, police reform and the Black Lives Matter movement during a recent forum sponsored by the Utah Debate Commission.

Salt Lake City is among the American communities that were wracked by violence during the summer. The unrest began in Utah’s capitol on May 30, when hundreds of people who gathered downtown to protest police brutality overturned a police car and vandalized several building.

Sporadic riots inspired by the BLM movement continued during June and July, climaxing when Salt Lake County district attorney Sim Gill announced that no charges would be preferred against two SLC patrolmen who shot Bernardo Palacios-Carbajal on May 23.

Gov. Gary Herbert was forced to declare a state of emergency to quell the riot that followed that announcement. Gill would later request that Utah legislators amend state laws to make it easier for prosecutors to charge police officers in situations of possible excessive force or other misconduct.

While acknowledging that civil unrest is regrettable, Parry repeats the famous quote from the late Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. that “riots are the voice of the unheard.”

“I know what he meant,” said the former tribal leader of the Northwestern band of the Shoshone Nation, “because I come from a marginalized group. I know what it’s like to be not heard. I know what it’s like to not have a seat at the table.”

But Moore argued that the incidents of alleged police brutality that motivated the recent upsurge in BLM protests were “symptoms of deeper problems.”

“We’ve been talking about symptoms when we need to be focused on the root causes of these problems,” he said. “There are too many Black Americans stuck in inter-generational poverty. That’s the root cause of these problems. You can look at social-economic status and that’s where you find a direct link to crime. That’s what draws more interactions with police, because we have too many brothers and sisters in our Black community stuck in that situation.

“Through education and criminal justice reform, we need to make better decisions and encourage better behavior.”

Parry believes, however, that frustration over institutional racism is at the root of the ongoing civil unrest.

“On the day this county was founded,” he emphasized, “our leaders signed a document that said that ‘all men are created equal’. Well, as long as you weren’t Black or Native American, all men were created equal. And that’s the system that we’ve lived with forever.

“Do Black lives matter?” Parry asked. “Yes. All lives matter, but they won’t really matter until Black lives matter.”

Parry and Moore are competing for Utah’s 1st District seat in Congress during the November general election.

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