SAN FRANCISCO — Wednesday’s church massacre in South Carolina demonstrates that America still has a long way to go to overcome racism and to keep guns from criminals and “people whose hearts are filled with hate,” Democratic presidential front-runner Hillary Clinton told the nation’s mayors Saturday.
“You can’t watch massacre after massacre and not come to the conclusion that, as President Barack Obama said, we must tackle this challenge with urgency and conviction,” Clinton said in her 25-minute address to the U.S. Conference of Mayors, her first public speech in the Bay Area since entering the presidential race. Obama made that call to the same crowd a day earlier; like Obama, Clinton was scheduled to raise campaign money afterward.
The former U.S. secretary of state, U.S. senator and first lady told the mayors that having lived in Arkansas and represented upstate New York, she understands that gun ownership is part of the fabric of many law-abiding communities. “But we can have common sense gun reforms that keep weapons out of the hands of criminals and the violently unstable, while respecting responsible gun owners,” she said, inspiring a standing ovation from some in the crowd.
Everyone must “work together to make this debate less polarized, less inflamed by ideology, more informed by evidence,” she said, but the status quo — in which even those on the FBI’s terrorist watch list can buy guns — is unacceptable. “That doesn’t make sense and it is a rebuke to this nation we love and care about,” Clinton said. “The president is right: The politics on this issue have been poisoned. But we can’t give up. The stakes are too high and the cost is too dear.”
Clinton also said the Charleston killer’s motivations denote a “history we desperately want to leave behind,” and just as faith saw the African-American community through Jim Crow and the fight for civil rights, “this generation will not be shackled by fear and hate.”
Can’t hide
Yet prayer won’t be enough, she said.
“I know there are truths we don’t like to say out loud or discuss with our children, but we have to,” Clinton said, as millions of Americans face racism daily in income inequality, disproportionate policing and prosecution, re-segregation of schools, and health conditions and access to care.
“How can any of these things be true? But they are. And our problem is not all kooks and Klansmen,” she said, but also cruel racial jokes that go unchallenged or loose talk of not wanting certain people moving into the neighborhood.
“We can’t hide from any of these hard truths about race and justice in America. We have to name them and own them, and then change them,” she said, praising the North Carolina woman who saw and followed alleged Charleston shooter Dylann Roof’s car until police could nab him. She didn’t look the other way, Clinton said, and “neither can we. We all have a role to play in building a more tolerant and inclusive society.”
Just as Atlanta dubbed itself a city that was “too busy to hate” in the 1960s, America now must be “not just too busy to hate, but too caring and too loving to ignore, to walk away, to give up,” she said.
Clinton later Saturday was scheduled to attend a brunch reception — closed to the press — in San Francisco’s Mission District hosted by Rick Hills, a real estate broker, former San Francisco planning commissioner and attorney. Tickets cost $2,700 per person; co-hosts who bundled $27,000 or more and hosts who bundled $50,000 or more were invited to a pre-reception and photo line.
Obama addressed the mayors Friday before headlining two Democratic fundraisers elsewhere in San Francisco; as Clinton spoke Saturday, Obama was boarding Air Force One at San Francisco International Airport en route to Palm Springs.
“Instead of causing multiple days of traffic jams for fundraising with celebrities and out-of-touch elitists, Obama and Clinton should actually address the concerns of everyday Americans in the Golden State,” said Republican National Committee spokesman Ninio Fetalvo. “Hillary Clinton needs to answer the serious questions regarding the foreign donations to her family’s foundation and her secret email server. As her avoidance tour continues, it’s no wonder why Americans don’t trust her.”
Passionate speech
But Monroe, Louisiana Mayor Jamie Mayo called Clinton’s speech “very strong and comprehensive about the issues and challenges of our country.” And Allentown, Pa. Mayor Ed Pawlowski — vying for his party’s nomination to challenge U.S. Sen. Pat Toomey, R-Pa., in 2016 — said it was the best of many speeches he has heard her give: “That’s the kind of attitude we need to have in Washington. … She was sincere, she was passionate about what she actually believes in.”
Former Maryland Gov. Martin O’Malley, one of Clinton’s rivals for the Democratic presidential nomination, is scheduled to address the mayors’ meeting Sunday.
Clinton declared her candidacy April 12 and has been busily visiting early-primary states since, but delivered her “official campaign launch speech” June 13 at the Franklin D. Roosevelt Four Freedoms Park on New York City’s Roosevelt Island.
Her last visit to the Bay Area was in early May, for fundraisers at the San Francisco homes of hedge-fund billionaire turned environmentalist Tom Steyer and longtime friend and supporter Susie Tompkins Buell, co-founder of Esprit and North Face, as well as at the Portola Valley home of eBay president and CEO John Donahoe.
Josh Richman covers politics. Follow him at Twitter.com/Josh_Richman. Read the Political Blotter at IBAbuzz.com/politics.