Congressional Black Caucus debate: on Civil Rights
Barack Obama:
People want to move beyond our divisions
I am absolutely convinced that white, black, Latino, Asian, people want to move beyond our divisions, and they want to join together in order to create a movement for change in this country. I’m not entirely faulting the media because, look, race is a
factor in our society. There’s no doubt that in a race where you’ve got an African-American, and a woman, and there’s no doubt that that has piqued interest. They are desperate to move beyond the same, old arguments that we’ve been having and start
actually getting something done in this country. The Republicans may have a different attitude, because they haven’t been appearing before forums that are diverse. The policies that they have promoted have not been good at providing
ladders for upward mobility and opportunity for all people. That is a fight that all of us will fight. But I don’t want us to get drawn into this notion that somehow this is going to be a race that splits along racial lines.
Source: 2008 Congressional Black Caucus Democratic debate
Jan 21, 2008
Hillary Clinton:
Equal pay is not yet equal
Equal pay is not yet equal. A woman makes $0.77 on a dollar & women of color make $0.67. We feel so passionately about this because we not only are running for office, but we each, in our own way, have lived it. We have seen it. We have understood the
pain and the injustice that has come because of race, because of gender. It’s imperative that we make it very clear that each of us will address these issues. You don’t hear the Republicans talking about any of this. You don’t hear them talking about the
disgrace of a criminal justice system that incarcerates so many more African-Americans proportionately than whites, and any kind of effort to help Historically Black Colleges and Universities, something that I’m committed to doing to make it clear that
these are important institutions that have led the way for so many great leaders to be where they are today. So we have a specific set of policies and priorities that are really part of who we are, as well as part of what the Democratic Party stands for.
Source: 2008 Congressional Black Caucus Democratic debate
Jan 21, 2008
John Edwards:
Subprime mess is also an issue of race
Q: Is this subprime mess really also an issue of race?A: Yes. If they haven’t been racially motivated, I don’t know. There’s no way for me to know what’s inside their head. But they have targeted the lowest income, most vulnerable families. If you are
African-American, you are likely to have a net worth of about 10 percent of what white families have. This is not an accident. We can go put our heads against the wall and pretend that the past never happened, pretend that we didn’t live through decades
of slavery, followed by decades of segregation, followed by decades of discrimination, which is still going on today. That history and that legacy has consequences. The consequence has been that African-American families are more vulnerable to
payday lenders, which is why we desperately need a national law, which would crack down on these predatory payday lenders. It’s not enough to do it state-by-state, because these predators just move from place to place to place.
Source: 2008 Congressional Black Caucus Democratic debate
Jan 21, 2008
John Edwards:
Equal housing policy and economic policy for all
If we really believe that every American is of equal value, no matter who their family is, where the live or what the color of their skin--when are we going to start living together? Because you look at what’s happening--I announced my campaign from the
9th ward of New Orleans. A lot of America was shocked to see those pictures coming out of the ninth ward. You can’t pick on New Orleans. The same thing’s true in many communities all over this country. We have got to--both in housing policy
& economic policy and every other way--create the kind of opportunity for people to be able to move. It shouldn’t just be that rich folks are able to, if they don’t like their neighborhood or don’t like their school or are worried about crime in their
neighborhood, they’re the only ones that can go somewhere else. Everybody in the US ought to have that chance, at the same time that we’re investing in a serious way to improving all of our neighborhoods.
Source: 2008 Congressional Black Caucus Democratic debate
Jan 21, 2008
Page last updated: Dec 01, 2018