After spending the day with civil rights leaders at New York’s National Urban League, Politico reported that Hillary Clinton would deliver a major speech addressing systemic racism Tuesday evening, including offering solutions on how to improve the lives of Black families in America.
And now, she’s delivering it, from a podium in Harlem’s historic Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture (which is, incidentally, the subject of a feted New Yorker cover and feature this week).
“Anyone asking for your vote,” she said to applause, should address these important issues, making a clear reference to Bernie Sanders in the run-up the the South Carolina primaries. Though Sanders has met with representatives of Black Lives Matter, he’s been criticized for “mainly address[ing] racism through the lens of economic inequality,” writes Politico. And:
Clinton is expected to announce a $2 billion proposal to end the so-called “school-to-prison pipeline.” The plan calls for “School Climate Support Teams” — a combination of social workers, behavioral health specialists and education practitioners who will be placed in schools with high rates of suspension and in-school arrests. The teams would be charged with spotting early-warning signs in at-risk students and utilizing other techniques to reform school discipline.
Critics will no doubt point out that Clinton supported her husband Bill when he was President and setting the parameters for a prison industrial complex—one of the primary reasons there is a “school-to-prison pipeline” at all. But the speech is currently ongoing, and live at MSNBC. Watch above.
Contact the author at julianne@jezebel.com.
Hillary Clinton meets with Rev. Al Sharpton and other civil rights leaders at the National Urban League on February 16, 2016, in New York City. Image via Getty.