George Floyd protests!!

Former President Barack Obama on Monday condemned violence amid protests over the death of George Floyd and police brutality and called for political solutions to address protesters' grievances about criminal justice.

The message from Obama, who previously decried Floyd's death last week when he said the killings of black men at the hands of police "shouldn't be 'normal' in 2020 America," follows a weekend that saw an escalation in protests nationwide.

"Let's not excuse violence, or rationalize it, or participate in it. If we want our criminal justice system, and American society at large, to operate on a higher ethical code, then we have to model that code ourselves," Obama wrote in an essay on Medium.