Hillary turns MLK Day into political statement about Trayvon Martin’s Mother

by McGuire | January 19, 2016 1:21 pm

Democratic presidential front-runner Hillary Clinton on Monday used a Martin Luther King Day event to invoke the memory of Trayvon Martin, the Florida teen shot and killed in 2012 in a case that highlighted national concern over the violent deaths of young African-Americans. Such a user:

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Clinton spoke in the shadow of the South Carolina Statehouse on the 30th anniversary of the federal holiday honoring King – and the first in which the Confederate flag no longer flies over the Statehouse dome.
Clinton used Martin’s memory as a segueway into praising his mother, Sybrina, who has become an advocate for families of gun violence.

The former secretary of state noted that young African-American men are more likely to die from gun violence than from the next nine leading causes of death combined.

Sunday’s debate took place less than a block away from the church where nine African-Americans were murdered last summer in Charleston.

NBC debate moderator Lester Holt referred to those shootings as well as other instances in which young black men have been killed by police seemingly unnecessarily.

‘It plays straight to the fears of many African-American men that their lives are cheap. Is that perception, or in your view is it reality?’ Holt asked former Clinton.

‘Sadly, it’s reality,’ Clinton said.’It has been heartbreaking and incredibly outraging to see the constant stories of young men who have been killed by police officers.There needs to be a concerted effort to address the systemic racism in our criminal justice system.’

Specifically, she called for retraining police, cracking down on racial profiling and revealing disparities in the criminal justice system.

Clinton’s closest rival for the Democratic presidential nomination, Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders, said he agreed the criminal justice system is broken but also called for sentencing reform over crimes such as possession of marijuana.

‘Who in America is satisfied that we have more people in jail than any other country including China, disproportionately African-American and Latino? Who is satisfied that 51 percent of young African-American men are either unemployed or under-employed?’ Sanders asked.

The third Democratic candidate, former Maryland Gov. Martin O’Malley, said he ran for mayor in Baltimore in 1999 at a time when the city was burying more than 300 young African-Americans per year.

O’Malley said he presided over the implementation of a civilian review board and improved reporting procedures for police misconduct among other changes.

‘We weren’t able to make our city immune to setbacks like the Freddie Gray unrest and tragic death showed, but we were able to save a lot of lives,’ he said.

At Monday’s event, Clinton went on to salute ‘the quiet heroes’ who speak out against injustice in all of its forms, including poverty, religious intolerance and various forms of social phobias.

Then she told the story of meeting Sybrina Fulton, Martin’s mother.

‘Not long ago, I went to Chicago to meet with a group of mothers who belong to a club no one ever wants to join. One by one, each held up a picture of a beloved child killed by gun violence or by the police,’ Clinton said.
‘They’re not looking for sympathy. They just want to spare other families from what they’ve endured. And they’re turning their grief into a powerful call of action for the nation.’

Fulton was one of the women in that group, Clinton said, and was still wrestling with the national spotlight after her child’s death.

‘She’s a pretty private person, and she really didn’t want to be a spokesperson for victims of gun violence and their families. She struggled with that for a long time,’ Clinton said.

‘But after a lot of prayers, she decided she had to act. She said, “I have to do my part. I have to do something to remember my son. I have to do something to try to make a difference in this world. … If you want change, it starts with you.”

‘So on this Martin Luther King Day, as we remember this giant from history, let us also think of Sybrina Fulton, and everyone who gets up every morning, and takes a very deep breath, and gets to work trying to make a difference in our country and this world.’

‘This holiday is theirs – and yours.’

This is just too orchestrated. Like, sorry, Hillary, but all your words come with that sickening smirk and look of a cat that just ate the canary and washed it down with milk. It’s hard to believe you feel anything for these folks besides an angle for political gain. Just pathetic.

Endnotes:
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