Clinton: We Need To Address ‘Systemic Racism’ In Our Criminal Justice System

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Former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton argued Sunday during the Democratic presidential debate that the United States needs to address “systemic racism” in the criminal justice system.

Clinton was asked during the debate about the shooting of Walter Scott, an unarmed black man who was fatally shot by a police officer in South Carolina. She said that it was “heart breaking and incredibly outraging” to see young men who have been killed by officers.

“There needs to be a concerted effort to address the systemic racism in our criminal justice system,” she said. “And that requires a very clear agenda for retraining police officers, looking at ways to end racial profiling, finding more ways to really bring the disparities that stock our country into high relief.”

Clinton said that statistics show one out of three black men might go to prison.

“I want people here to think what we would be doing if it was one out of three white men,” she said. “And very often the black men are arrested, convicted, and incarcerated for offenses that do not lead to the same results for white men. So we have a very serious problem that we can no longer ignore.”

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  1. Avatar for sooner sooner says:

    I’m interested to learn more from her.

    I listened to a NPR segment yesterday and heard Alicia Garvey say in no uncertain terms that she was offended by Hillary in a Q&A session and under no circumstances would she vote for her, even if Ted Crud was the GOTP nominee.

    To me that’s troubling

  2. Avatar for chammy chammy says:

    She’s an interesting character but she’s only one voice and one vote.

  3. Avatar for kerick kerick says:

    I watched the debate as well, and in addition to noting its almost surreal difference from the GOP debates, I truly appreciated the content of what was actually being discussed.

    Regarding this question of systemic racism, I doubt I’ll change any minds that are dead set on seeing nothing wrong with the status quo, but reality is indeed depressing. And if it takes a presidential candidate (and hopefully a future president) to make some loud noises and even take action on it, even if just by hammering it into people’s heads that this would not be business-as-usual stuff if white men had been facing similar treatment, then hey, all the better.

    It was also great that she reminded people that Governor Snyder for one would not have had the gall to do what he did to all those babies in Flint in a middle class majority white suburb and even think he’d get away with it. On that score, I do hope he and his cohorts will end up in jail, given that a group like Al Qaeda would have its members drawn and quartered for even thinking about poisoning the water system in an American town.

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