O'Rourke, addressing questions on topics including health care, housing affordability and education, acknowledged what he identified as his own struggle with not knowing enough about the history of slavery in the United States and its ongoing ramifications.
"White Americans do not know this story," O'Rourke said, noting that until a tour of the church's grounds, he hadn't known anti-slavery activist Harriet Tubman had lived in the area. O'Rourke has addressed issues concerning white privilege before, telling a crowd at a historically black college in South Carolina earlier this year that he might not know their struggles but wanted to try to help them. In Iowa, he said he didn't think being a white man in a historically diverse field of candidates put him at a disadvantage because his sex and race have given him inherent advantages for years.
On Friday, asked if he supported reparations, O'Rourke said that he did, though he still supports the creation of a commission to further study the issue and how to ameliorate it. "The answer is yes. We must repair this country from its very founding, kidnapping peoples from West Africa, bringing them here in bondage to literally build the wealth of the United States," he said. "The path there, though, has to come through learning and telling this American story with everyone. Then, I think, we define what reparations look like."
https://www.mail.com/news/politics/...s-full-story-slavery.html#.7518-stage-hero1-1
"White Americans do not know this story," O'Rourke said, noting that until a tour of the church's grounds, he hadn't known anti-slavery activist Harriet Tubman had lived in the area. O'Rourke has addressed issues concerning white privilege before, telling a crowd at a historically black college in South Carolina earlier this year that he might not know their struggles but wanted to try to help them. In Iowa, he said he didn't think being a white man in a historically diverse field of candidates put him at a disadvantage because his sex and race have given him inherent advantages for years.
On Friday, asked if he supported reparations, O'Rourke said that he did, though he still supports the creation of a commission to further study the issue and how to ameliorate it. "The answer is yes. We must repair this country from its very founding, kidnapping peoples from West Africa, bringing them here in bondage to literally build the wealth of the United States," he said. "The path there, though, has to come through learning and telling this American story with everyone. Then, I think, we define what reparations look like."
https://www.mail.com/news/politics/...s-full-story-slavery.html#.7518-stage-hero1-1