In an exclusive interview with North Carolina’s African-American press, Hillary Clinton said that even though she is running to benefit all Americans, the first woman expected to be elected president of the United States on Nov. 8 does have a special focus on working with the African-American community and its leaders — both local and national — to improve employment, business, education, and other important quality of life issues.
“I want to pay particular attention to Americans who feel left out and left behind by the economy, or the situation in their communities,” the former First Lady, senator and United States Secretary of State said Oct. 23 at St. Augustine’s University in Raleigh, a historically Black college, during perhaps one of her last sit-down interviews of the campaign.
“I’ve laid out a really extensive agenda for African-Americans, starting with improving the economy so that its producing more jobs for more people; raising the national minimum wage – [we’ve] got mostly women earning minimum wage, often times being the sole support of their children, and they deserve a better economic opportunity,” she said. Clinton also cited more affordable housing as a need.
She maintained that getting equal pay for women as a “particularly big issue for African-American women,” adding that black female small business owners are “the fastest growing segment of the small business world in our country.”
“[But] they’re running into credit… [and] regulatory problems. We’ve got to look at those, not just from a 30,000-foot view, but right down on the ground. What is it that stands in the way of men or women getting their businesses going?”
Improving higher education not only through the proposal she and Sen. Bernie Sanders have developed to make public universities “tuition-free” for students from families making $125,000 or less, but also creating a “dedicated $25 billion fund” to help private historically black colleges and universities like St. Augustine’s and Shaw universities to continue to grow.
After reading that one in five North Carolina homes have no access to the Internet, noting that they are disproportionately African-American or Latino, Clinton said emphatically, “I want to fix that,” continuing that those families are left out of so many economic and educational opportunities as a result.
“Taking on systemic racism,” something she has “talked very openly and specifically about,” is something Clinton added to her pronounced agenda for African-Americans. She points towards reforming the criminal justice system “from end-to-end” to help stem the tide of questionable fatal police shootings of black people, improving police training, and building greater respect between law enforcement and the African-American community.
“I particularly want to provide more diversion from the criminal justice system and more second chance programs for people who have paid their debt to society so that we begin to reverse what has been an over incarceration that has really disrupted communities.”
“But I also have to do more to heal the divides that we face in our country, and I’m taking all of this on because I want to build on the progress that Pres. Obama has made. I don’t want to see it reversed or ripped away.” And yet, a “President” Hillary Clinton’s approach would be from “a different perspective that will hopefully get even more people listening,” she says.
Clinton certainly disagrees with Donald Trump’s assessment that African-Americans “live in hell,” instantly exclaiming, “Oh that’s so wrong,” and then adding “One of many insulting, divisive comments that Trump made was his characterization of African-American communities. It just shows he’s never been in any, he doesn’t know any people, he has no idea of the dynamism of small business or the importance of historically black colleges and universities, or the role that black churches play, or black professionals, and every walk of life.”
“He has characterized in such a negative way what I see as a part of America that has a lot going for it, but [also] has some challenges that we must honestly address. “
Source: LA Sentinel