September 28, 2015Gronda Morin

aside ELIZABETH WARREN ON “BLACK LIVES MATTER”

EDWARD KENNEDY INSTITUTE
EDWARD KENNEDY INSTITUTE

Finally, a political heavyweight representative proclaimed her full support for the “Black Lives Matters” movement. The senior Massachusetts US Senator Elizabeth Warren gave a speech on 9/27/15 on racial inequality, at the Edward Kennedy Institute in Boston, which will hopefully set the standard for the Democrat Party in the 2016 elections.

This speech has been reported about in the 9/27/15 Washington Post article by Wesley Lowery, titled, “Elizabeth Warren just gave the speech that Black Lives Matter activists have been waiting for.” The following are some excerpts which includes a link to Senator Warren’s address:

“In a Sunday (9/27/15)speech on racial inequality, Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) called for broad policing reform — including de-escalation training and body cameras for all police officers — and likened the current Black Lives Matter movement to the civil rights movement that won black Americans the right to vote in the 1960s.”

Elizabeth-Warren-Time

“None of us can ignore what is happening in this country. Not when our black friends, family, neighbors literally fear dying in the streets.” Warren said. “This is the reality all of us must confront, as uncomfortable and ugly as that reality may be. It comes to us to once again affirm that black lives matter, that black citizens matter, that black families matter.”

“Warren draws direct parallels between the civil rights movement and the current anti-police-brutality movement, and it sought to link issues on economic inequality with systemic racism. She traces racial economic inequality, citing inequities in the housing system, as well as decrying restrictions to voting rights.”

senate-gallery--Edward M. Kennedy Institute
senate-gallery–Edward M. Kennedy Institute

“Economic justice is not — and has never been — sufficient to ensure racial justice. Owning a home won’t stop someone from burning a cross on the front lawn. Admission to a school won’t prevent a beating on the sidewalk outside,” Warren declared. “The tools of oppression were woven together, and the civil rights struggle was fought against that oppression wherever it was found — against violence, against the denial of voting rights and against economic injustice.”

[WATCH: Elizabeth Warren’s full speech on racial inequality]

“Senator Warren’s speech clearly and powerfully calls into question America’s commitment to black lives by highlighting the role that structural racism has played and continues to play with regard to housing discrimination and voting rights,” said DeRay Mckesson, a prominent activist who said he hopes to meet with Warren to further discuss racial injustice. “And Warren, better than any political leader I’ve yet heard, understands the protests as a matter of life or death — that the American dream has been sustained by an intentional violence and that the uprisings have been the result of years of lived trauma.”

16 comments

  1. Sec. Hillary Clinton has a better, realistic take on Black Lives matter. She fully supports the movement, but she also says it would be difficult to change the hearts of people, but something can be done by legislating laws to protect black lives. Hillary Clinton is not rhetoric and bombastic in her speeches. What people don’t know is,when Sen. Warren was still a Republican, Hillary Clinton was fighting for Universal health Care , which was more progressive than Obamacare, and as early as 1996, HC gave THAT speech on women in Beijing, China. HC is the real deal.

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    • DeRay McKesson, one major leader in the “Black Lives Matter” movement is making arrangements to meet with Hillary Clinton about their concerns for sometime in the next couple of months. She has tweeted him an invitation. I, like you am convinced that she will be fully supportive of this movement.

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    • Your argument that the “Black Lives Matter” movement is not valid because Black on Black crime at 90% is the more serious problem, deflects from the real issue. For example, White people who are murdered are murdered almost 85% of the time by other White folks. We hold police officers to a higher standard. If a White person were improperly abused by a police officer, he/ or she would complain. Just because there is White on White crime does not bar one from expecting to be protected and served by the police departments we pay for, as taxpayers. Our Black brothers and sisters should expect no less. I respectfully disagree with your premise.

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    • Citizen suspects are arrested, charged, stand trial, and generally found guilty and sentenced. Members of law enforcement involved in shootings are investigated by their peers, seldom charged, and even if indicted by a grand jury and go to trial, are seldom held accountable even with indisputable evidence. Black lives matter includes all lives, because the decisions are used to help other members of law enforcement involved in beating and killings to not be held accountable. Those decisions started with Rodney King in California. Later, also in California, the death of Kelly Thomas serves as good example. The evidence of the video where Kelly was deliberately beaten and tazed to death was excluded at trial. The cops walked.

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