During last night’s town hall and during campaign stops with the "mothers of the movement” Hillary spoke about the systemic racial problems our country faces.
Hillary called on all our citizens, but she particularly mentioned white Americans, to recognize that their own experiences may not equip them to understand what our fellow African American citizens go through every single day.
I'm extremely proud that Hillary is talking about systemic racism in such stark terms. We need much more of this blunt and thought provoking talk on racism.
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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."
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."
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Gwen Carr, the mother of Eric Garner, said Clinton was the only presidential candidate who contacted her after Garner's death following a police chokehold in Staten Island, New York.
"We didn't have to go looking for her. She came to us," Carr said.
Sybrina Fulton, the mother of Martin, said of Clinton and the election: "We have an opportunity to have someone who is going to stand us for us as African Americans, for us as women."
Fulton, who first met Clinton in Chicago last year, said she "walked in as a presidential candidate but she walked out as a compassionate mother."
Maria Hamilton, the mother of Dontre, a mentally ill man killed by a Milwaukee cop in 2014, said she cried on Clinton's shoulder.
"I had the opportunity, me and my next oldest son ... to speak with her and give her our concerns," said Hamilton. "I broke down on her shoulder. I owe her a cleaning bill. But she allowed it. At first I was kind of embarrassed, but then she told me, I am a mother and a grandmother and I feel your pain."
"You cannot fake compassion. You cannot fake genuine," said Geneva Reed-Veal, Bland's mother. "You cannot fake the fact that you care. I don't care if it's in the nine-month span of a window of the election, you can't fake that."
Hillary spoke about systemic racism during last night’s debate.
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