The Other Ground Zeros

While Senator Clinton may score political points elsewhere with such rhetoric, in the responsible communities, and in African American communities, such a statement just shows how out of touch she is with the African American experience

[Black Star Editorial]

After learning that Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has made a request to visit Ground Zero while in New York for the United Nations General Assembly meetings, Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton released the following statement:

“It is unacceptable for Iranian President Ahmadinejad, who refuses to renounce and end his own country’s support of terrorism, to visit the site of the deadliest terrorist attack on American soil in our nation’s history.”

Senator Clinton can justifiably oppose Ahmadinejad’s plans to visit Ground Zero: when he hosted the Teheran Conference to “re-xamine” the question of the Holocaust some of the participants were racists such as David Duke so we shed no tears for Ahmadinejad himself, while opposing the Bush/Cheney militarism towards the Iranian nation itself.

Yet, Senator Clinton’s statement is factually incorrect. The “deadliest terrorist attack on American soil in our nation’s history,” remains the genocide of Native Americans and the enslavement of Africans in America.

While Mrs. Clinton may score political points elsewhere with such rhetoric, in the responsible communities, and in African American communities, such a statement just shows how out of touch she is with the African American experience, including the torture and deaths on plantations, and the lynching and razing of entire African American communities even after “emancipation.” Unless, somehow, subconsciously, Senator Clinton is not including African Americans and Native Americans in “our nation’s history.”

With current realities such as Jena reminding us all of the horrible past and how far we still need to travel, Senator Clinton should take a much broader and more soul-searching look at “our nation’s history.”


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