Black lives matter to Hillary Clinton

Family photo

Throughout her long career in public service, Hillary Clinton has stood for social justice for all people. She continued to live out those values on Monday when she met with the mothers of Trayvon Martin, Jordan Davis, Michael Brown and Tamir Rice, young blacks who have recently lost their lives through acts of violence.

Alana Horowitz Satlin, assignment editor at the Huffington Post has the story:

Hillary Clinton held a private meeting in Chicago on Monday with the families of prominent victims of recent gun violence.

Hillary tweeted: Hillary Clinton ✔ @HillaryClinton

Grateful to spend time today with mothers who have lost a child to violence and turned their grief into a national call to action. -H

6:05 PM - 2 Nov 2015

The mothers of Trayvon Martin, Jordan Davis, Michael Brown and Tamir Rice were all present at the meeting with the former secretary of state.

The women discussed racial inequality, criminal justice reform, and gun control. Clinton's first pro-gun control ad debuts on Tuesday. 

"She is a mother and she is a woman and I felt she understood where we were coming from," said Samaria Rice told CNN. "It doesn't matter what color we are, I felt that she really understand where we are coming from."

Rice's son, Tamir, was the 12-year-old Ohio boy fatally shot by police last year for wielding what later turned out to be a BB gun. Brown, 18, was shot and killed by police officer Darren Wilson last year in Ferguson, Missouri, after a scuffle. In 2012, Martin, 17, was shot and killed by George Zimmerman, a Florida neighbor of his father's fiancee, for appearing "suspicious." Davis, also 17, was shot and killed after an argument over loud music with Florida resident Michael David Dunn. 

Dunn was the only shooter of the four who was convicted of a crime.

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Racism widespread and up close

Michael Brown.

I’ve witnessed the cruelty of racism up close in recent months as it’s been played out in my apartment building. The most discouraging aspect of the ugliness has been the obliviousness to the problem among both whites and blacks. I’ve almost had to grab a neighbor by the shoulders and shake him to get him to see what has been going on.

Meanwhile, yet another young black man has been shot and killed by a white policeman, and the reverberations are still being felt across America. 

Prompted by the Ferguson episode, New York Times columnist Nick Kristoff suggests that we’re all “a little bit racist.”

Kristoff writes:

Let’s start with what we don’t know: the precise circumstances under which a white police officer in Ferguson, Mo., shot dead an unarmed black teenager named Michael Brown.

But here’s what evidence does strongly suggest: Young black men in America suffer from widespread racism and stereotyping, by all society — including African-Americans themselves.

Research in the last couple of decades suggests that the problem is not so much overt racists. Rather, the larger problem is a broad swath of people who consider themselves enlightened, who intellectually believe in racial equality, who deplore discrimination, yet who harbor unconscious attitudes that result in discriminatory policies and behavior.

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