Watch Hillary Clinton address Charleston shooting and 'America's long struggle with race'

Hillary Clinton used her speaking engagement at a mayoral conference in San Francisco on Saturday to address the recent shooting at an historic black church in Charleston, S.C.

“Once again, racist rhetoric has metastasized into racist violence,” the presidential candidate said at the Hilton-hosted 83rd Annual U.S. Conference of Mayors. “America’s long struggle with race is far from over.”

Clinton discussed various forms of institutionalized racism in the U.S., from housing discrimination to the disparity in median wealth between black and white Americans. She went on to address less overt types of bias that goes beyond “kooks and Klansmen,” like “cruel jokes,” “off-hand comments,” and similar microaggressions.

The Democratic hopeful also tied the massacre—which took the lives of nine congregants of the Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church, including state Sen. Clementa C. Pinckney, on Jun. 17—to another systemic issue facing the nation: gun violence.

“You can’t watch massacre after massacre and not come to the conclusion that, as President Obama said, we must tackle this challenge with urgency and conviction,” she told the nearly 300 American mayors in attendance. “I am not and will not be afraid to keep fighting for commonsense reforms.”

Dylann Roof, the 21-year-old white supremacist who confessed to the shooting, was apprehended by law enforcement on Thursday. His trial began with a bail hearing on Friday.

Bad at filling out bios seeks same.

 
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