Yvette Clarke: “Let me thank the gentleman from Brooklyn, my closest colleague in the New York State delegation--both of our districts…”

“Let me thank the gentleman from Brooklyn, my closest colleague in the New York State delegation--both of our districts being in the borough of Brooklyn--for leading us in this Special Order hour today: Race in America--where do we go from here? For more than a year, many people have tried to give voice to Trayvon Martin and to present his perspective into the debate concerning the injustice of the criminal justice system in Black males. With his remarks on Friday, President Obama provided Trayvon Martin a voice. By sharing his experiences, he offered America a perspective on the experiences of other African American men, women, boys, and girls, and he gave voice to millions of Americans who felt the pain of the Martin- Fulton Family as their own. When President Obama introduced racial profiling into the conversation, he held up a mirror to the faces of all of us as Americans--to a truth that some commentators have tried to ignore and that many more are in deep denial of--for, despite the promises of equality in the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution, our practices have been inadequate to our ideals. Our beliefs, the best traditions of our Nation, have not become a reality for millions of Americans of African descent.…”