Clinton Supports Protests: ‘I Do Appreciate the Way Young People Are Standing Up’

>> Secretary Clinton, you told some black lives matter activists recently that there’s a difference between rhetoric in activism and what you were trying to do, get laws passed that would help what they were pushing for. But recently at the university of Missouri, that activism was very, very effective. So would you suggest that kind of activism take place at other universities across the country?
>> Well, John, I come from the 60s, a long time ago. There was a lot of activism on campus— civil rights activism, antiwar activism, women’s rights activism— and  . Obviously, I believe that on a college campus there should be enough respect so people hear each other. But what happened at the university there, what’s happening at other universities, I think reflects the deep sense of, you know, concern, even despair that so many young people, particularly of color, have. You know, I recently met with a group of mothers who lost their children to either killings by police or random killings in their neighborhoods, and hearing their stories was so incredibly, profoundly heartbreaking. Each one of them, you know, described their child, had a picture, you know, the mother of the young man with his friends in the car who was playing loud music and, you know, some older white man pulled out a gun and shot him because they wouldn’t turn the radio down. Or a young woman who had been performing at President Obama’s second inauguration coming home, absolutely stellar young woman, hanging out with her friends in a park getting shot by a gang member. And, of course, I met the mothers of Eric Garner and tamir rice, and Michael Brown and trayvon martin and so many of them who have lost their children. So your original question is the right question. And it’s not just a question for parents and grandparents to answer. It’s really a question for all of us to answer, every single one of our children deserves the chance to live up to his or her god-given potential. And that’s what we need to be doing to the best of our ability in our country.