2016 presidential candidate Hillary Clinton told a black female audience member that she could wear her hair any way she wanted before launching into a monologue about supposed police racism.
Clinton took the time to empower a black woman in the crowd named Kyla, who said that she recently changed her hairstyle and that now she’s getting sideways glances from people that she associates with backlash from the Black Lives Matter movement and Beyonce’s controversial Super Bowl halftime performance, which was viewed as being anti-police.
“I’m sorry, WHAT?” Clinton said, straining to hear about the woman’s hair problem.
“Well, Kyla, first of all thank you for being so candid and brave in being able to stand up and say this about yourself,” Clinton answered the woman with the new hairstyle.
“You have a right to wear your hair any way you want to. That is your right,” Clinton said to applause.
Clinton pointed to five black women in the crowd, who stood up, and identified them as mothers of victims of police misconduct or shooting.
Then she switched subjects when another woman asked her about all-women’s colleges. “Women were in charge of everything,” Clinton recalled of her time at all-women Wellesley College. “We ran all the activities so it was a great leadership activity … It put me in some challenging positions to negotiate issues.”
On crime, Clinton spoke of a real-world shooting where a young black male was “playing the music in his car too loud with a bunch of his friends, and a white guy comes over and asks him why he’s playing the music too loud, and they exchange words, and he kills him. He shoots and kills him,” Clinton said.
“We are never going to be the nation we should be. We are never going to outlive our legacy, dating back to slavery,” Clinton said, unless we change our policing habits. The shooter was subsequently jailed for life.
Clinton cited the Walter Scott police case in North Charleston and also the case of Zachary Hammond, a white person killed by police.
“I think there are an enormous number of police officers in our country who perform honorably each and every day … But we have problems in our criminal justice system in a lot of places that we can’t ignore,” Clinton said after being asked for more thoughts on Beyonce’s decision to showcase symbols and anti-cop themes from the murderous Black Panther movement.
“When they go out on the streets, I’m sure they’re nervous and scared too,” Clinton added, of police officers.
Clinton also said that “an African-American baby has a higher rate of dying,” citing infant mortality statistics. “In this state, your governor and legislature wouldn’t extend Medicaid.”
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