Seems Hillary’s PR department has been vacationing of late, as she followed up her Nancy Reagan AISA gaffe with a response about the violence at Trump rallies that didn’t sit well with some black leaders. Personally I find it odd to use the South Carolina massacre as an exemplar of how to deal with the racial hate on display at Trump rallies, as Chad Williams noted.
Hillary Clinton’s statement in response to an outbreak of violence at Republican Party front-runner Donald Trump’s Chicago rally was aimed at encouraging political unity. But instead, many reacted to her statement with disappointment.
“The divisive rhetoric we are seeing should be of grave concern to us all,” Clinton said in the statement issued after midnight on Saturday morning. “We all have our differences, and we know many people across the country feel angry.”
“We need to address that anger together,” she added.
Clinton then evoked the massacre in Charleston, S.C., which left nine African American churchgoers dead. She pointed to it as an example of how the country can overcome its divisions.
“The families of those victims came together and melted hearts in the statehouse and the Confederate flag came down,” Clinton said. “That should be the model we strive for to overcome painful divisions in our country.”
Trump was never mentioned in the statement itself. And unlike some of Trump’s Republican rivals, who laid the blame for inciting violence squarely on his shoulders, Clinton avoided addressing Trump’s role at all.
The decision left some puzzled.
“Problematic use of Charleston. Why is racial healing always dependent on black forgiveness?” noted Chad Williams, chair of African and Afro-American studies at Brandeis University.
“Clinton’s response seems more concerned about the fact that protesters fought back than with the racism and nativism of Trump’s rallies,” added Eddie S. Glaude Jr., a professor of African American studies at Princeton University.