Maybe this was discussed when it happened but I was unable to find it. HRC gave a speech in Florissant, Missouri and the topic was race. By all accounts the speech was well received. Well, maybe not all accounts. Turns out that there were some people unhappy with a certain word choice and took to Twitter to express disapproval. That is to be expected - expressions of disapproval seems to be all that Twitter is for nowadays. That is until a major news organization writes a story about it.
First, a little background.
Hillary Clinton's speech Tuesday at a historic black church in Missouri was mostly well-received by the audience,...
Clinton spoke to frequent applause about religion, racism, access to education, repairing communities and the shooting last week in Charleston, S.C.
The church where Clinton spoke, Christ the King United Church of Christ, is in Florissant, Mo., fewer than 5 miles from where the rioting and protesting happened in Ferguson.
So far, so good. But then she related a story about how her mother helped her to form her views on the dignity of others.
"I asked her, 'What kept you going?' Her answer was very simple. Kindness along the way from someone who believed she mattered. All lives matter."
In the context of her story it makes perfect sense. Even out of the context of her story. However, it seems that many were offended that she used the phrase 'all lives matter' instead of 'black lives matter'. Frankly, it would have been a weird thing for her mother to say in that context but that is beside the point.
You can read the article at NPR here:
http://www.npr.org/...
Or just browse her Twitter or Facebook to see the reaction.
Clearly, the activists in Ferguson are leery of seeing their cause broadened and potentially weakened by dilution. That is perfectly valid and understandable. But in light of the conservative reaction to President Obama's discussion of race during a podcast with Marc Maron - oh wait, apparently there wasn't a discussion about race! If you go by what conservative media is saying the President of the United States of America incited race wars because he sat there and repeated the N-word over and over. As infuriating as I found that spectacle to be I am equally upset over the negative reaction to the Clinton speech. Maybe even more so since it is coming from fellow activists and not the professional trolls of conservative media.
Now, if you have read this far you are probably thinking that I am a Clinton supporter; I am not. I am going to try to get Bernie Sanders message as deep and as far as I can. But it is not cognitive dissonance to support Bernie and defend Clinton. Do you think Bernie is without flaws? Do you like projecting your deepest beliefs into another person and then crashing into useless depression when they deviate from your wishes (see Obama, 2008). Clinton will make a great and historic President and I will be proud to work for her after the primary and vote for her in the general.
But this kind of thing is ridiculous. She embraced the Black Lives Matter movement in its early days. She has been a leader in scorning the Confederate Flag wavers following the devastating act of terrorism in Charleston. And she was relating a story about how her mother inspired her to see the goodness in everyone. She shouldn't have to sit in front of you and recite your slogans for you to see that she is on your side. If she did you would likely just cause her of pandering and appropriating of your struggle.
So, what is the moral of this story? Is NPR just trolling for controversy by amplifying a small handful of Clinton non-supporters? Am I just missing how enormous of an insult it was to not say Black Lives Matter? Is there something else I am missing? We aren't going to learn anything if we continue to blow up over somebody's choice of words. Let me know.
4:42 PM PT: So, I've gotten through the comments and they have gotten me to thinking about a couple things.
First is that it was not my intention to start a pie fight between African American activists and HRC supporters. So I would like to remind people that we are all here with the same intentions: to discuss this incident in good faith and bring greater understanding to each side.
Second, I am grateful for the Clinton critics for providing more background that, from their point of view, explains the harsh reaction to her speech. It has given me much to think about.
Thirdly, even after considering these points I still disagree that she did anything that remotely justifies the reaction. She gave a speech that sounded like it was from a white point of view because she is white - to do otherwise would have been rightly scorned as Whitesplaining. She did not repeat the Black Lives Matter slogan because - who knows? Maybe she figured that they were all on the same page and she didn't need to recite any shibboleths among allies. But if she had said it then would the same activists or a different set of activists be outraged that she pandered and appropriated their slogan? Probably the same set but maybe a different set. Either way there would still be outrage. I'm still trying to understand how this could have gone differently.
Finally, I still believe that we are going to have to take our fingers off of the hair-triggers of our outrage if we are going to continue to coexist. This coalition must prevail or our shared enemy will defeat us.