In a message aimed directly at African Americans, Hillary Rodham Clinton wrote in a prominent black newspaper that the country is still racist and suffers from “ongoing systemic racism.”
“I know for many white Americans, it’s tempting to believe that bigotry is largely behind us and that systemic racism no longer exists,” she wrote in the Charleston Chronicle.
But, she added, “We can’t close our eyes to the violence perpetrated against black families and communities because of the legacies of discrimination and ongoing systemic racism.”
The newspaper has a deep reach in the South Carolina community and Clinton used her front page column to charge that blacks are held back by a race gap in several areas including income and justice.
Clinton said her plan to target big banks and even campaign finance will help African Americans.
“But even the most aggressive plan to reform our campaign finance system would leave African-Americans nearly three times as likely as whites to be denied a mortgage. Cracking down on Wall Street won’t close the gender wage gap for African-American women, who earn just 60 cents to every dollar a white man earns. African-American men would still be far more likely to be stopped and searched by police, charged with crimes, and sentenced to longer prison terms than white men. Gun violence would still be the leading cause of death for young black men. And Republicans would still be trying to roll back hard-won progress by passing onerous new restrictions that make it harder for black people, poor people, and young people to vote.
“These are not simply effects of economic inequality. They are the result of racism. We need to face that and we need to fix it,” she wrote.
Paul Bedard, the Washington Examiner’s “Washington Secrets” columnist, can be contacted at [email protected].
