Hillary Clinton delivered a powerful statement on racism in South Carolina

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Jesse Lehrich ‏@JesseLehrich 11h11 hours ago
Hillary Clinton delivered a powerful statement on racism in South Carolina http://mashable.com/2016/02/23/hillary-clinton-racism-south-carolina/#Cqxe5W2aySqn …


Reuters

CHARLESTON, S.C. — Sitting among women who lost their children to violence, Hillary Clinton made a powerful pitch for all Americans to take systemic racism seriously, in a final sprint for black votes ahead of the South Carolina Democratic primary.

"Something is very wrong when we have these incidents where kids can get arrested for petty crimes and lose their lives,” Clinton said. “Something is wrong when African Americans are three times more likely to be denied a mortgage as white people are, when the median wealth of black families is just a fraction of the median wealth for white families, Clinton said.

She also had a message specifically for white Americans, calling on them to show more empathy for the problems plaguing black communities across America.

"Tackling and ending systemic racism requires contributions from all of us. White Americans, we need to do a better job of listening when African Americans talk about the seen and unseen barriers they face every day," Clinton said. "We need to recognize our privilege and practice humility rather than assume our experiences are everyone's experiences."

@HillaryClinton, earlier today, on "tackling and ending systemic racism" pic.twitter.com/naCMe2pAVz
— Mashable News (@MashableNews) February 24, 2016

Clinton spoke at Central Baptist Church in Columbia, S.C. joined on stage by five mothers affiliated with the Black Lives Matter movement, as well as former Congresswoman Gabby Giffords and her husband, retired astronaut Mark Kelly. Clinton and Democratic rival Bernie Sanders are both seeking the votes of black voters ahead of South Carolina's Feb. 27 Democratic primary. Black voters here are expected to make up about half of the Democratic primary electorate.

Clinton introduced the women, calling them "the mothers of the movement, who have suffered as no mother ever should."

“That’s too many deaths, too many young lives cut short, too many questions still unanswered,” Clinton said, after introducing each mother.

The five mothers praised Clinton for spending time listening to their stories, learning about their children and said they back her plans to remake the American criminal justice system.

The women joined Clinton on the campaign trail as a group here for the first time, but they campaigned for Clinton around the state on Monday and Tuesday.

"When we met with her, she walked in as a secretary, she walked in as a political figure, she walked in as a presidential candidate," Sybrina Fulton, the mother of Trayvon Martin, said. "But she walked out as a compassionate mother, as a compassionate grandmother, as a compassionate wife."

"When no other candidate would listen to us, Ms. Clinton did," Fulton said.

"She is the one for us," Gwen Carr, whose son Eric Garner was killed when a New York City police officer put him in a chokehold in 2014, said of Clinton. "She will stand with us. She will be with us...I endorse her because she endorsed us first."


read: http://mashable.com/2016/02/23/hillary-clinton-racism-south-carolina/#vcCrH7fGLSqk


Reuters

[berni_mccoy]

1. Was that before or after she made illegal robocalls to mis-inform African American voters in NC?

Oh right.

[Beowulf]

2. Hillary calls on each of us to make contributions to address this problem.

What will her contribution as POTUS be? How much political capital is she willing to spend?

Would she stop the sale of military grade equipment to police departments?

Would she direct the Justice Department to prosecute these killings as hate crimes?

Would she prosecute mortgage lenders for civil rights violations?

Would she prosecute police officials, DA's, elected officials for covering up these crimes?

Would she prosecute Rick Snyder for poisoning the residents of Flint?

Will she call on Rahm Emanuel to resign and prosecute him for civil rights violations?

Or will she tell the victims she feels their pain and the perpetrators to cut it out? And then walk away?

I've got a stake in how she responds. Yes, I'm white, but my granddaughters are bi-racial, their skin as dark as Barak Obama's (and just as beautiful, well actually more so, but that's grandfather perspective.). They live in an area where police have killed AA's deliberately and without any semblance of cause. They could kill my granddaughters. Mortgage lenders could deny my son-in-law a mortgage. If these things had happened and Hillary wanted to parade me in front of a national audience, she'd need to publicly address my questions to my satisfaction. Otherwise, I'd publicly spit in her face for the shameless exploitation this is.

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4. well, I'd hope you'd get the opportunity to publicly ask her

...from a safe or remote distance, of course.

[Beowulf]

5. Did you just hope

my granddaughters are killed? Cause your statement kind of reads that way.

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6. what?

...you want those questions answered, if I read you correctly.

[Beowulf]

7. I don't think you meant that

but your wording is insensitive given the subject matter. You hope I get the opportunity to ask the questions. The only way I get to ask Hillary those questions to her directly and publicly is if my granddaughters are dead.

But your point isn't that nor is it addressing what Hillary is willing to do about the matter. It's about keeping me a safe distance away from her

I get that hugs are powerful and expressions of sympathy are meaningful. But she wants to become someone who could do something about this. What's she willing to do? What sacrifices is she willing to make? I'm not seeing much from her here that's actually going to make a difference.

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8. ffs

you started your post with some interesting and legitimate questions. I'm sorry, but I zoned out on your role playing hypothetical; putting yourself in the place of these women and supposing how you would conduct yourself.

The only thing I wanted to touch upon was your list of questions. Of course, I couldn't resist reacting to your suggestion that you'd spit on Hillary Clinton if you didn't get the answer you wanted to the question you posed.

I think you might have been better off leaving it where you left it.

[mcar]

3. Powerful