Perhaps it's time we took a break from all the Miss Universe fat-shaming, tax-dodging Foundation-closing, rage-tweeting, compulsive lying and now losing in the polls Trump Campaign and join Hillary Clinton and young Zianna Oliphant at the Little Rock AME Zion Church in Charlotte, North Carolina.
Clinton's address to the congregants was pointed and honest.
"It's been a hard year, hasn't it?" Clinton asked, as people in the congregation responded, "Yes." ''Think about how many times President Obama has had to console our nation about another senseless tragedy, another shattered family, another distressed community and our children are watching and they feel it too."
During the services, Clinton invited 9-year-old Zianna Oliphant to join her at the pulpit, recalling the black child's tearful address to the city council on race relations. Zianna recently told city leaders that she couldn't "stand how we're treated," a speech that Clinton said moved her to tears.
“I'm a grandmother and like every grandmother, I worry about the safety and security of my grandchildren. But my worries are not the same as black grandmothers,” Clinton said. “But because my grandchildren are white, because they are the grandchildren of a former president and secretary of state — let's be honest here — they won't face the kind of fear that we heard from the young children testifying before the city council.”
Clinton conceded that working on race relations is not easy work. "We've been working on this since Adam and Eve and Cain and Abel."
But "protecting all of God's children is America's calling."
Hillary Clinton is a church-goer. She is, like me, a United Methodist Woman. If you haven't visited the United Methodist Women website, I urge you to do so. If you don't get a glimpse as to what motivates Hillary Clinton, you'll at least see what "her tribe" is up to. UMW's don't mess around. Some of the social issues for which we advocate are demanding gun sense, as guns factor into domestic violence, standing against North Carolina's HB2 Law, demanding clean water for Flint and other communities as a human right, and working to end Family Detention in the war on immigrants.
EJ Dionne has said about Clinton and her United Methodist faith:
My view is that the way in which Hillary Clinton is most likely to solve her authenticity problem is if she becomes far more out front and embracing of her Methodist faith and its social demands. I believe that the old social Methodist in her is a deeply authentic Hillary Clinton, but it is something that her campaign hasn’t conveyed very much. When she quotes John Wesley out on the campaign trail, she seems to light up, and I think voters notice that.
Hillary Clinton didn't attack her opponent at church yesterday, so I won't here. I'll just say that there is only one party that wants to try to fix the problem of race relations and unlawful use of force by the police.
As of today, Hillary Clinton is leading her opponent by one point in North Carolina.
