Hillary Clinton Puts Republicans On Notice: It’s Not Enough To Remove The Confederate Flag

The South Carolina legislature dragged itself into the semi-present day reality as it finally voted early Thursday to remove the Confederate flag from the State House. Phew! I guess we’re all done talking about “race”, sighs Fox News.

Not so fast.

Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton issued a statement refusing to back down from the issue, saying we have a lot of “unfinished” business left in order to confront and act on the inequalities that still exist in our country:

“Removing this symbol of our nation’s racist past is an important step towards equality and civil rights in America. The flag may soon no longer fly at the State Capitol, but there is still unfinished business in confronting and acting on the inequalities that still exist in our country. We can’t hide from the hard truths about race and justice. We must do everything in our power to have the courage to name them and change them.”

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This isn’t a new theme for the former Secretary of State. She challenged Republicans on their Southern strategy in a speech calling to make voting easier , saying it should be easier to vote. In that speech, Clinton called for automatic voter registration for citizens.

Hm. What’s wrong with that, you ask? Good question. Ask the Republicans, because they have been working hard to make sure that certain demographics, those who are unlikely to vote Republican, have a harder time getting registered. This is why they made up the imaginary boogeyman of “voter fraud”, which while it does happen (and when it does, it oddly seems to be Republicans) is not the problem that they make it out to be. It’s less likely than getting hit by lightning, so you have to wonder why they go to such lengths to make it nearly impossible for some demographics to vote. Or instead of wondering, you can just put 2 and 2 together, and call them on the fact that they are rigging the vote for their party since they can’t sell the people on their policies.

Hillary Clinton is right. The removal of the flag is just the first step. We must force this conversation to continue, and we must hold elected lawmakers and all 2016 candidates accountable to discussing what remedies and policies they would advocate addressing the horrific inequalities that exist in our justice system.

We must do it for every minority who has been targeted and killed in an act of racial prejudice. This can’t continue to stand in the “land of the free.”

Sarah Jones

Listen to Sarah on the PoliticusUSA Pod on The Daily newsletter podcast here.

Sarah has been credentialed to cover President Barack Obama, then VP Joe Biden, 2016 Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton, and exclusively interviewed Speaker Nancy Pelosi multiple times and exclusively covered her first home appearance after the first impeachment of then President Donald Trump.

Sarah is two-time Telly award winning video producer and a member of the Society of Professional Journalists.

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