Wednesday, June 24, 2015

Hillary Clinton on racism in America

From Hillary Clinton's statement about racism following the church massacre in Charleston:

“Race remains a deep fault line in America. Millions of people of color still experience racism in their everyday lives…. More than a half century after Dr. King marched and Rosa Parks sat and John Lewis bled, after the Civil Rights Act and the Voting Rights Act and so much else, how can any of these things be true? But they are.

 “And our problem is not all kooks and Klansman. It’s also in the cruel joke that goes unchallenged.  It’s in the off-hand comments about not wanting ‘those people’ in the neighborhood.

“Let’s be honest: For a lot of well-meaning, open-minded white people, the sight of a young black man in a hoodie still evokes a twinge of fear. And news reports about poverty and crime and discrimination evoke sympathy, even empathy, but too rarely do they spur us to action or prompt us to question our own assumptions and privilege.

We can’t hide from any of these hard truths about race and justice in America. We have to name them and own them and then change them.”

   -  Hillary Clinton

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