Transcript: Mayor de Blasio Delivers Remarks at Performance of Janet Langhart Cohen's Anne & Emmett

October 21, 2015

Mayor Bill de Blasio: Thank you, lieutenant.

Janet, I want to thank you for making this play something that will now educate a whole new generation of New York City police officers, and I want to thank you for what you’ve achieved. I want to tell you why you struck such an extraordinary nerve, but, before I do, our hearts are very heavy. And, you know, being here tonight in a sense is a communion. It’s a chance for us to be together at a tough moment and to remember that Officer Holder lived out his purpose in life, what he believed in, what his family – his father and grandfather before – believed in. There’s something truly noble in someone having such a sense of mission that they would put their own life on the line. And we feel a tremendous sense of loss. In the spirit of Janet’s play, it is striking that we’ve lost four officers to violence in less than a year – one of African descent, one of European descent, one Latino, one Asian. And like this play reminds us that we are all in this together, and that we all have the same opportunities to do something great and positive together, but we also all suffer the same negatives together. This painful cycle we’ve been through reminds us that people who serve us come from all of our communities, they look like us, they are us – police are us, they represent us. And as Janet said, and as Commissioner Bratton said, we’ve got to see past all presumed visions and all the divisions bequeathed us by the past and start to find each other more deeply.

Commissioner Bratton’s right – he and I wake up every morning believing in that mission, believing it’s possible. And it brings me to the power and the audaciousness of what Janet has created, because, in the end, showing us the two important figures in history, each of whom educated us in our own right, but both of whom have truly so much in common they could have walked the exact same path. I remember when I first read The Diary of Anne Frank, it was at a moment when the realization of everything that the Holocaust had meant was really beginning to dawn on our larger society and be discussed more openly. And we all know the story of Emmett Till – that as more and more information became available, the way it shocked a nation, sobered a nation, led to change, and yet the fight for justice for Emmett Till went on for decades.

So these are two powerful, powerful moral examples from our history, and Janet’s notion of combining them to make us see so clearly the commonality of our path, I think, is nothing short of brilliance, and I think it will be very affecting for our new officers. I think it will help them to see they’re going to have a benefit. By the way, we always have to have a special faith in the next generation, unburdened by some of the biases that surrounded all of us when we were coming up and that we’ve all, in our own ways, tried to fight off. Well, I have more faith this generation starts from a better place. And what they’re going to receive here in this fantastic academy and what they’re going to receive through this play is going to help them actually be vanguards in our society for understanding. And that’s a police force we can be evermore proud of.

Thank you, everyone. And thank you, Janet, for what you’ve brought us. Thank you.