1、 Mayor Lee, thanks for having us in your beautiful city. It is for me a great treat to come back to address a group that, as you just heard, I spent a lotof time as senator working within great measure because of the need for buttressingHomeland Security, as well as other challenges within our citie
2、s during the eight years I servedin the Senate. And it was always refreshing to come here because despite whatever was going on in Congressor Washington with respect to partisanship, a conference of mayors was truly like an oasis inthe desert. I could come here and be reminded of what Mayor LaGuardi
3、a said, “Theres noRepublican or Democratic way to pick up the garbage. You pick it up, or you dont pick it up.”And I loved being with people who understood that. Ive learned over the years how important it is to work with city hall, to try to make sure we areconnected up as partners and to get whate
4、ver the priorities of your people happen to beaccomplished. So it pays. It pays to work with you, and I am grateful to have this opportunity to come backand see you. When I was Senator from New York, I not only worked with the mayor of New York City, ofcourse, I worked with creative and committed ma
5、yors from Buffalo to Rochester to Syracuseto Albany and so many other places. And I was particularly happy to do so because they were always full of ideas and eager to worktogether to attract more high-paying jobs, to revitalize downtowns, to support our firstresponders, to try to close that skills
6、gap. And I want you to be sure of this, whether you are a Democrat, a Republican or anIndependent: If I am president, Americas mayors will always have a friend in the White House. Now, as I was preparing to come here, I couldnt help but think of some of those who arentwith us today. Tom Menino was a
7、 dear friend to me, and to many in this room, and I certainly feel his loss. Today, our thoughts are also with our friend Joe Riley and the people of Charleston. Joes a goodman and a great mayor, and his leadership has been a bright light during such a dark time. You know, the passing of days has no
8、t dulled the pain or the shock of this crime. Indeed, as wehave gotten to know the faces and names and stories of the victims, the pain has onlydeepened. Nine faithful women and men, with families and passions and so much left to do. As a mother, a grandmother, a fellow human being, my heart is burs
9、ting for them. For thesevictims and their families. For a wounded community and a wounded church. For our countrystruggling once again to make sense of violence that is fundamentally senseless, and historywe desperately want to leave behind. Yesterday was Juneteenth, a day of liberation and delivera
10、nce. One-hundred and fifty years ago,as news of President Lincolns Emancipation Proclamation spread from town to town across theSouth, free men and women lifted their voices in song and prayer. Congregations long forced to worship underground, like the first Christians, joyfullyresurrected their chu
11、rches. In Charleston, the African Methodist Episcopal Church took a new name: Emanuel. “God is withus.” Faith has always seen this community through, and I know it will again. Just as earlier generations threw off the chains of slavery and then segregation and Jim Crow,this generation will not be sh
12、ackled by fear and hate. On Friday, one by one, grieving parents and siblings stood up in court and looked at that youngman, who had taken so much from them, and said: “I forgive you.” In its way, their act of mercy was more stunning than his act of cruelty. It reminded me of watching Nelson Mandela
13、 embrace his former jailers because, he said, hedidnt want to be imprisoned twice, once by steel and concrete, once by anger and bitterness. In these moments of tragedy, many of us struggle with how to process the rush of emotions. Id been in Charleston that day. Id gone to a technical school, Tride
14、nt Tech. I had seen thejoy, the confidence and optimism of young people who were now serving apprenticeships withlocal businesses, Black, white, Hispanic, Asian, every background. I listened to their stories, Ishook their hands, I saw the hope and the pride. And then by the time I got to Las Vegas,
15、I read the news. Like many of you, I was so overcome: How to turn grief, confusion into purpose and action?But thats what we have to do. For me and many others, one immediate response was to ask how it could be possible that weas a nation still allow guns to fall into the hands of people whose heart
16、s are filled with hate. You cant watch massacre after massacre and not come to the conclusion that, as PresidentObama said, we must tackle this challenge with urgency and conviction. Now, I lived in Arkansas and I represented Upstate New York. I know that gun ownership ispart of the fabric of a lot
17、of law-abiding communities. But I also know that we can have commonsense gun reforms that keep weapons out of thehands of criminals and the violently unstable, while respecting responsible gun owners. What I hope with all of my heart is that we work together to make this debate less polarized,less i
18、nflamed by ideology, more informed by evidence, so we can sit down across the table,across the aisle from one another, and find ways to keep our communities safe while protectingconstitutional rights. It makes no sense that bipartisan legislation to require universal background checks wouldfail in C
19、ongress, despite overwhelming public support. It makes no sense that we wouldnt come together to keep guns out of the hands of domesticabusers, or people suffering from mental illnesses, even people on the terrorist watch list. Thatdoesnt make sense, and it is a rebuke to this nation we love and car
20、e about. The President is right: The politics on this issue have been poisoned. But we cant give up. Thestakes are too high. The costs are too dear. And I am not and will not be afraid to keep fighting for commonsense reforms, and along withyou, achieve those on behalf of all who have been lost beca
21、use of this senseless gun violencein our country. But today, I stand before you because I know and you know there is a deeper challenge weface. I had the great privilege of representing America around the world. I was so proud to shareour example, our diversity, our openness, our devotion to human r
22、ights and freedom. Thesequalities have drawn generations of immigrants to our shores, and they inspire people still. Ihave seen it with my own eyes. And yet, bodies are once again being carried out of a Black church. Once again, racist rhetoric has metastasized into racist violence. Now, its temptin
23、g, it is tempting to dismiss a tragedy like this as an isolated incident, tobelieve that in todays America, bigotry is largely behind us, that institutionalized racism nolonger exists. But despite our best efforts and our highest hopes, Americas long struggle with race is far fromfinished. I know th
24、is is a difficult topic to talk about. I know that so many of us hoped by electing ourfirst Black president, we had turned the page on this chapter in our history. I know there are truths we dont like to say out loud or discuss with our children. But we haveto. Thats the only way we can possibly mov
25、e forward together. Race remains a deep fault line in America. Millions of people of color still experience racism intheir everyday lives. Here are some facts. In America today, Blacks are nearly three times as likely as whites to be denied a mortgage. In 2019, the median wealth of Black families wa
26、s around $11,000. For white families, it wasmore than $134,000. Nearly half of all Black families have lived in poor neighborhoods for at least two generations,compared to just 7 percent of white families. African American men are far more likely to be stopped and searched by police, charged withcri
27、mes, and sentenced to longer prison terms than White men, 10 percent longer for the samecrimes in the federal system. In America today, our schools are more segregated than they were in the 1960s. How can any of that be true? How can it be true that Black children are 500 percent more likelyto die f
28、rom asthma than white kids? Five hundred percent! More than a half century after Dr. King marched and Rosa Parks sat and John Lewis bled, afterthe Civil Rights Act and the Voting Rights Act and so much else, how can any of these things betrue? But they are. And our problem is not all kooks and Klans
29、man. Its also in the cruel joke that goesunchallenged. Its in the off-hand comments about not wanting “those people” in theneighborhood. Lets be honest: For a lot of well-meaning, open-minded white people, the sight of a youngBlack man in a hoodie still evokes a twinge of fear. And news reports abou
30、t poverty and crimeand discrimination evoke sympathy, even empathy, but too rarely do they spur us to actionor prompt us to question our own assumptions and privilege. We cant hide from any of these hard truths about race and justice in America. We have toname them and own them and then change them.
31、 You may have heard about a woman in North Carolina named Debbie Dills. Shes the one whospotted Dylann Roofs car on the highway. She could have gone on about her business. Shecould have looked to her own safety. But thats not what she did. She called the police and thenshe followed that car for more than 30 miles. As Congressman Jim Clyburn said the other day, “There may be a lot of Dylann Roofs in theworld, but there are a lot of Debbie Dills too. She didnt remain silent.” Well, neither can we. We all have a role to play in buildin
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