Subject: MUST READ/VIEW SEC CLINTON COMMENT ON FERGUSON, MISSOURI
From: Burns Strider <[email-masked]>
To: CTRFriendsFamily <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 28 Aug 2014 15:52:38 -0400
List-Id: <CTRFriendsFamily.americanbridge.org>

Secretary Clinton today, in her first public remarks since Michael Brown's
death, offered the following commentary and thoughts:

Thursday, August 29, 2014

 HRC’s Ferguson Comments

Video Here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5ZTPVi1rlss&feature=youtu.be

Transcript:

HILLARY CLINTON: Now this summer, the eyes of our country and indeed the
world have been focused on one community in the middle of the American
heartland, Ferguson, Missouri. Watching the recent funeral for Michael
Brown, as a mother, as a human being, my heart just broke for his family
because loosing a child is every parent’s greatest fear and an unimaginable
loss. But I also grieve for that community and for many like it across our
country. Behind the dramatic, terrible pictures on television are deep
challenges that will be with them and with us long after the cameras move
on.

This is what happens when the bonds of trust and respect that hold any
community together fray. Nobody wants to see our streets look like a war
zone, not in America. We are better than that. We saw our country’s true
character in the community leaders who came out to protest peacefully and
worked to restrain violence. The young people, who insisted on having their
voices heard and in the many decent and respectful law enforcement
officers, who showed what quality law enforcement looks like, men and women
who serve and protect their communities with courage and professionalism,
who inspire trust rather than fear. We need more of that because we can do
better. We cannot ignore the inequities that persist in our justice system.
Inequities that undermine our most deeply held values of fairness and
equality.

Imagine what we would feel and what we would do, if white drivers were
three times as likely to be searched by police during a traffic stop as
black drivers, instead of the other way around. If white offenders received
prison sentences ten percent longer than black offenders for the same
crimes. If a third of all white men, just look at this room and take one
third, went to prison during their lifetime. Imagine that. That is the
reality in the lives of so many of our fellow Americans and so many of the
communities in which they live.

I applaud President Obama for sending the Attorney General to Ferguson and
demanding a thorough and speedy investigation that is both appropriate and
necessary to find out what happened, to see that justice is done, to help
this community begin healing itself. And we should all add our voices to
those who have come together in recent days to work for peace, justice, and
reconciliation in Ferguson and beyond. To stand against violence and for
the values that we cherish. We can do better. We can work to rebuild the
bonds of trust from the ground up. It starts within families and
communities.

It was 51 years ago today that Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. called us to
live out the true meaning of our creed, to make the dream real for all
Americans. And that mission is as fiercely urgent today as when he stood on
the steps of the Lincoln Memorial in the hot August sun all those years
ago. So we have a lot of work to do together. At Nexenta, you say, “better
living for a better world.” At the Clinton Foundation, we say, “we’re all
in this together.” You put those together, it comes out to a pretty good
roadmap for the future. And we need all of you, your energy and your
efforts, your innovation, your building, your creating to help us achieve
that better world. Thank you all for having me here with you today.